Luke 22-23

Palm Sunday | April 10, 2022 | Lk 22-23 | Paula Murray |

This day brings a kind of spirit-based whiplash with it, as we go from joy to sorrow.  One moment we are waving palms and welcoming Jesus Christ into this space and our spirits.  Moments later we are screaming for His death.  We are spiritual Jekyls and Hydes, both a monstrous beast and a kindly healer, manifesting in our acts one or the other depending on circumstance and our own fragile hold on faith.  Martin Luther said of this reality that we are “simul Justus et peccator”, meaning that at the same time we are both saint We and sinner.  Sinner, because that tendency to make an idol of our own will leads to self-worship, sin, and death.  But we are also saints, in that we are sinners made right before God by the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins and for our salvation from death.  Even our reaction to Christ’s death on the cross is two-sided.  We feel the horror of the barbaric injuries visited on His body, and the joy of the salvation He won us from sin and death.  

Given the imperfect nature of our humanity, in order for us to experience that joy at what Christ’s death and resurrection won us, we most likely need to first experience the horror of His suffering and death. I am sure that there are those super saints among us who go from the last Sunday in Lent to true Easter joy without benefit of hearing of Jesus’ humiliation and suffering yet again.  I can say this with authority, because I remember so very clearly our reaction to the movie, The Passion of Christ.  Most of us had never really thought much about what His passion, meaning suffering, personally cost our Savior, not until we saw the cat-of-nine-tails come out and the nails purportedly go through an actor’s flesh and into a wooden beam.  When it comes to Jesus’ suffering, we fail in faith or imagination or the willingness to suffer with another, even if that is only vicariously through God’s Word.  We run from that stuff, or at the very least avoid it.  If we are not careful, the danger for us is that Easter bunny and the Easter ham become more the real experience of Easter for us than Christ’s death on the cross.

We need to hear over and over again the truth of Easter, that our Easter joy was bought with the blood of Jesus Christ and with His suffering.  We cannot let the story of His death and resurrection become little more than a fable because we want to avoid the horror of it all or even our own responsibility in it.  It is only when we immerse ourselves in this story of our redemption, that we can truly even begin to understand and honor the wonders of God’s grace.

Paula Murray