Last Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Canticle 16; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43
!What they did to Jesus!
This is what the religious establishment did. They wanted him gone. He not only addressed people in synagogues; he conversed with people as he travelled with that motley group of disciples; he spoke to gatherings on hillsides, at banquets where tax collectors and sinners sat with him, and in the courts of the temple in Jerusalem, too. His parents were peasants, a seamstress and a carpenter. Everywhere he went, he stirred up the common people. He challenged the status quo by reciting the prophets of old. The established religious leaders he ignored. And they wanted him gone.
This is what the political establishment did. He was a disruptor of peace and quiet. He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey with crowds cutting down branches of palm to carpet his path. The commoners cried out to him as the successor to their ancient warrior king David. Yet, a few days later, they cried out, Crucify him, crucify him. His own people also addressed him as King, King of the Jews. There was no king; there was only Caesar, who ruled from Rome. The Governor Pilate could not let this continue and get out of hand. This territory was already difficult to manage. This Jesus needed to be gone.
When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.
(Luke 23:33)
He needed to be gone!
They were done with him for one, two, three days. Then the world changed forever on that next Sunday. On Friday, the world grew dark as midnight for a time. On Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, the world seemed back to normal. On Sunday at brilliant dawn, the stone that had sealed the tomb was rolled away, and the burial cloths were neatly folded. To the gathered fearful followers in the Upper Room, he was there among them again, pierced hands, pierced feet, and punctured side. His brilliance had pierced the darkness of Friday. His brilliance overcame the normalness of the Sabbath, and on that first day of the week, his peace was shared with all who were gathered. That peace surely passed all understanding.
In St. Paul’s letter to the congregation in Colossae he wrote this
He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God…
For in him [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell…
Jesus, the Risen One, in whom “all the fullness of God” lived, he breathed that Spirit upon those in that Upper Room in Jerusalem. He gave up his Spirit to them, and they have passed on that Spirit, that legacy to us, to us!
That legacy passed on to us was foreseen by the prophet Jeremiah, as noted in our first reading this morning. In his pre-exilic time, Jeremiah knew that faithfulness was more than worship. Faithfulness was faithful worship plus faithful living. To be in covenant with our God is to worship plus justice. Jeremiah envisioned the rise of a “righteous branch” who would “execute justice and righteousness in the land”. The prophet Micah made it crystal clear, people of faith are to “do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God”. Justice and mercy in covenant language mean to raise up the poor and to protect the vulnerable.
To walk with our God means to follow the path God walks rather than expecting God to follow the path we walk. To walk with God means to live and to die as Jesus did.
Today is the last Sunday of the Church year. Next Sunday we begin a new year with Advent, preparing to welcome the one born in a stable and laid in a manger by Mary and Joseph. On the last Sunday of the Church year our focus is on the crucified Jesus who in three days changed the world forever. To be fully human, to be the people God created us to be – we walk with Jesus.
We do justice, we love mercy, and we walk humbly following Jesus in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
Amen
