This year we will hear the story from Arrest to Burial as told in the Gospel of Mark 14:43-15:47
The Sermon title is Disaster???
Early Thoughts: What do we think about as we sit at the base of the cross and remember this story? Can we read it, immerse ourselves in it, feel all the feelings, without remembering the rest of the story? Does remembering that this is not the end of the story rob the cross of its horror and power? (And is that necessarily a bad thing?)
The disciples, the people closes to Jesus had to live through this not knowing for sure what the end of the story truly was. For them it must have seemed very possible that this was the end. All their hopes were being destroyed. The promise of a new world was gone. The horror and terror must have been a palpable part of their experience.
For them, this was a disaster. Yes Jesus has repeatedly told them that the Son of Man would be executed and then would be rise three days later but I am pretty sure they did not believe it. After all why would they? As far as they knew dead meant dead. Some of them might have heard and even believed in the idea that the righteous would be raised at the last days, resurrection was a part of some Jewish schools of thought in the first century, but still was now the time? What they knew for sure was that Jesus was hauled away and his death was imminent. For all they knew the highly identifiable followers of Jesus could be next.
How might you react if you had been there?
To be honest I think that even though we know the rest of the story (so far, the story has not actually come to an end yet) we need to stop and pretend we don't for a moment. It is too easy to ignore the horror and terror of this day when we want to jump right to an empty tomb and the promise of new life. I am not saying that is bad. Hope is always a good thing. Remembering the promise of God that life and love will always defeat (in the long view) death and fear is always a good thing. But maybe if we don't pause to remember the realities of death and fear, despair and defeat we don't fully appreciate the power of the victory.
The world around us knows a lot about fear and death. Despair is a common reaction to our news stories. Some days it seems like the disaster wins -- sometimes on a personal level, sometimes in our faith communities, sometimes on a global scale. We may need to sit with the disaster for a bit, even as we try to live into hope.
What are the disasters you need to sit with this year? Where does it look like the forces of empire and destruction are beating down the Kingdom of God? What makes you want to run away and hide so you are not the next one to get caught in the web of death?
--Gord
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