The
Passion According to Luke
Over
spring break we drove up to New England to look at some potential colleges for
my daughter Emma. We spent a lot of time driving, which means that we spent a
lot of time looking at billboards. And, for better or for worse, they offered
some interesting lessons in theology. I saw signs that said, “Jesus is the Only
Way to God,” “Hell is Real,” Do You Know Where You’re Going When You Die?” and
“Repent or Regret it Forever.” You know, the kind of billboards that warm your
heart and make you feel so good — not! And along with those aggressive and
unfriendly messages, we saw lots of crosses, big crosses. One in particular
stood out. We saw it at night while driving on I-81. Perhaps some of you have
seen it: it’s a huge metal cross made of steel beams, 75 or 100 feet tall. And
at night it’s lit up, with flood lights that change color. I don’t know what
the people who erected it wanted that cross to be: a piece of religious art, a
tool of evangelism, a totem shouting that this is Christian country — I don’t know.
But like the billboards, it was definitely in your face and meant to be. After
hours and hours of driving, it was easy to come away thinking that the Gospel
of Jesus Christ is grim news indeed, and that the cross is primarily a threat.
But
it’s not. The world, in the form of the religious authorities and the Roman
army, does its worst to Jesus, but the Passion narrative we just heard is not a
story of Jesus versus the world: it’s a story of Jesus embracing the world. The
message here is not adversarial, it’s not, “You better believe or else!” This
is a love story, and the only way to grow in our understanding of it is to hear
it as a love story. Not love in a trite or sentimental way, but real love, the
kind of love we see when someone gives his life away for others unreservedly,
with no strings attached. They betray and deny Jesus; they mock him, beat him,
and torture him. But he never fights back, never lashes out at all: he doesn’t
argue with them, doesn’t curse them, doesn’t threaten them with hell. There’s
no talk of punishment. He doesn’t say, “I’ll get revenge on you later.” He just
surrenders himself. And he’s not passive about it, he’s not a doormat: he gives
himself away freely and deliberately until his dying breath, when he says, Father into your hands I commend my spirit. And
to the very end, he gives himself away in love. He forgives his executioners:
they haven’t apologized, but he forgives them anyway. He offers Paradise to the
criminal dying next to him: the guy’s guilty as hell, but he’s given heaven
anyway. I mean, how much clearer can the message be? What more does God have to
do? God is love, and in this story, God in Christ pours God’s self out to
convey unconditional love, in the fullest, most dramatic way possible. And that
love is for all people, no exceptions. It is for every single person in this
room, regardless of your age, your sex, your sexual orientation, your marital
status, your level of faith or lack of faith, your moral standing, your church
attendance, your failures, your sins, or anything else. God doesn’t just love
us when we get it right; God just loves us.
But
here’s the really staggering thing about Palm Sunday. We don’t do all that we
do today just to remember an historical event, no matter how important it is.
We’re not here just to engage in hero worship “Oh, yeah, that Jesus: he’s
amazing.” We will not fully understand today until we accept that this love
story is our love story. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes, Let the same mind be in you that was in
Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality
with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself. We have been
baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus: his Spirit is our spirit;
his story is our story. It’s not just that we are supposed to feel loved: we’re
supposed to empty ourselves by loving others, like Jesus. In fact, as Jesus
teaches, those two things are bound together. We can’t just receive God’s love
and bank it: we experience God’s love is by giving it away. Like an electric
current, you have to complete the circuit: God’s unconditional love flows
through us as we let it flow out of us to the world around us. If we want to
feel love ourselves, the Christ way is to love others; if we want to experience
forgiveness, we forgive others; if we want to know the fullest life possible,
we give our life away.
The
cross should never be an in-your-face symbol to the world, showing others how
Christian we are and bullying them into being Christians, too. The cross is a
reminder to us of who we are — God’s beloved, one with Christ — and an
invitation to become fully alive, to become the people we were born to be. It’s
not a question of being perfect or trying to get into the Kingdom: we’re
already loved as we are, we’re already part of the Kingdom. It is our joy to
live into it, giving ourselves away to our customers at work, giving ourselves
away to the patients in our office, giving ourselves away to the children in
our classroom, to our families, our friends, our fellow parishioners, the
people God brings into our lives. They won’t be perfect and we’re not perfect,
and that’s okay: love them anyway. Let the Christ Spirit flow: give generously,
forgive freely, be light wherever you go — make everyone’s day happier, make
everyone’s life better. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus;
his love story is our love story. Live it. To the very end and beyond, live it.
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