A Death As Large As Life [Palm/Passion Sunday]

Matthew 27:11-54

When I ask people how they’re doing, the response has frequently included a reference to strangling someone.  I think I’m most worried about those who are married.  That’s been the most popular answer when I talk to married people, “We’re trying not to strangle one another.”  Or, “We’ll be ok as long as we don’t end up strangling one another.” 

 

So I’d like to go on record here: Presbyterians are against strangling loved ones.  I will release an instructional pamphlet later in the week, titled “Five Reasons Not To Strangle A Family Member Even When You Wish You Could!”  We in the Witt household feel your pain.  For the most part, we’ve gotten along.  We are doing more things together – we’re playing tennis, taking walks, cooking together.  But the stress has unraveled us a few times.  And yes, we have been tempted to metaphorically strangle one another.

So it’s hard to share a house with a spouse or a family right now.  And our kids are older and self-sufficient.  I cannot imagine the demands of having smaller children in the house right now.  And if you have school-aged children, you’re now all of a sudden running your own daycare and are trying your hand at home-schooling too.  One overwhelmed mother shared with me this week that it’s been hard to focus, hard to concentrate, hard to find healthy rhythms, hard to get anything done. 

Some of you who are grandparents are helping with your grandkids.  Some of you have parents in care facilities and cannot visit them.  Those of you who are students are missing your friends, your teachers, your classes, your sports, activities and social lives.  Some of you are living alone, and that brings its own set of challenges.  Some of you are working from home now.  Some of you are small business owners and are trying to figure out how to hang on to staff and keep things going.  Some of you have lost a job or are worried about losing a job. 

So all of our habitual routines and our familiar patterns are gone.  And it’s normal for us to feel off balance, decentered, stuck, tangled up or befuddled.  This is part of what it means to be a human being during a life-altering crisis.  As I call around to check on people, again and again you all say to me, “Let me know who needs help.  What can I do?  I can give money.  I can pick up groceries for people.”  So thank you for caring for one another during this time.  Keep it up! 

Personally, I am finding it difficult to organize my time and to concentrate.  Most days it feels like I’m moving in slow motion.  My brain feels like it can’t get out of first gear.  I’m struggling to find any kind of balance – part of me feels paralyzed, shut down and distracted; another part of me feels anxious, nervous, and stressed by the urge to be productive and to act as if nothing’s different, as if I should be accomplishing everything I normally would.  And the honest truth is – a good day for me right now means getting a few, important things done, and making sure I am available to my family, making sure I find several times a day to be outdoors and stay active. 

So we come to this weekend’s gospel reading of Jesus’ death with a host of fears and frustrations, questions and concerns.  Is this story of the crucifixion large enough to hold what we’re feeling right now?  Is this account of Good Friday “good” enough and spacious enough to hold all that worries and concerns us? 

Matthew’s version of Jesus’ death is as spare and minimal as it can get.  After twenty-seven chapters of Jesus telling stories, engaging in conversation, teaching and preaching, in this final scene Jesus barely speaks at all.  The actual report of Jesus’ death is plain and unornamented.  “When Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit” (v. 50).  There is no sensationalism.  There is no attempt to marshall any gory details about a torn and bloody body. 

By keeping the account of Jesus’ death spare and simple, the gospel gives us a death as large as life.  Jesus’ crucifixion swells out to include our lives in all their complicated inter-connectedness.  The story of Jesus’ death includes Pontius Pilate, the religious scholars, the crowds, the soldiers, Simon from Cyrene, and even the two “rebels” or thieves crucified beside Jesus – this varied cast of characters represents the motley people and forces that surround us and confound our efforts to love and be loved. 

The details that immediately follow the report of Jesus’ death might surprise us.  But again, this confession is at work to show us a death as large as life. 

The report that the temple curtain was torn in two (v. 51), suggests that this story is about God’s faithfulness spilling out beyond Israel to include the whole world. 

The report that the earth shook and rocks were split (v. 51); that the tombs were opened, and many of those who had died rose and appeared to many (v. 52-3), suggests that even the earth itself and the powers of death are being swept into this newness.

The report that the Roman soldier confessed, watching Jesus die, that “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (v. 54), suggests that God’s love for us is so compelling that it can soften even the hardest of hearts.  It’s hard to imagine anyone or anything that escapes the ever-widening ripples that cascade outward from the death of Jesus.

When I was a senior in high school, four of us went to McDonald’s for lunch.  The friend who drove us to McDonald’s tended to be a little prickly.  He was extra devoted to being punctual.  He would sometimes give us min-lectures about things like “discipline” and “responsibility.”  Well, during lunch we were horsing around and laughing.  My disciplined friend was eating his food because he was worried about not getting back to school on time.  He warned us to hurry up.  We told him to chill out.  He said he was going to the bathroom.  Several minutes later, he hadn’t come back.  We looked outside and his car was gone.  He left us.  The first person we asked for a ride back to school looked at us and said, “No.”  The next person we asked for a ride, said, “Sure, but there’s only one extra seat in my pickup.”  So the three of us sat on top of one another in one seat.  There wasn’t enough room for us in that truck, but we folded and contorted ourselves until it worked.  (We were late for class, in case you were wondering.) 

When we confess that we are people who belong to the crucified Jesus, we are not looking back to some past event.  We make that confession, focused on our own lives, lived right now, right here, connected to others within the spacious love of the one crucified for us. 

We confess that the death of Jesus is large enough to include our own dying and the dying of everyone else.  This is a death large enough to hold our anxiety, our failures, our lack of trust, even our inability to see and feel God’s goodness to us.  This is a death as large as life.  Whatever you feel this week, God can hold it.  Whatever you experience this week, God’s love has room for that too.

We offer our whole lives to the one who has loved us all the way to the end.  We may not get done all we hope to get done in the coming week.  That’s ok.  But all that we do – whether we’re playing or eating or singing or learning or cleaning or caring or working or sleeping – we do as people energized by the Spirit of the crucified Jesus.  Now go in peace to love and serve the Lord this week.  Amen.