LENT 2020: Day 40: Holy Saturday

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• Saturday, April 11, 2020: Holy Saturday
  Job 14.1-14; Psalm 31.1-4, 15-16; 1 Peter 4.1-8; Matthew 27.57-66

     For a tree has hope:
          though cut down, it can still be removed,
              and its shoots will not cease.
    Though its root grows old in the ground
          and its stock die in the dust,
    from the scent of water it flowers,
          and puts forth branches like a sapling.

Yesterday was Good Friday. And if you really believe that Jesus is divine, that means God is dead. 

But Job reminds us that a tree has hope, even if it’s cut down. 

And, almost defiantly, Job announces that he will hold out hope until his dying day:

     If a man dies will he live?
          All my hard service days I shall hope
              until my vanishing comes.

May we stand with Job, defiant and hopeful, proclaiming the words of the Psalmist:

     In you, O LORD, I shelter.
          Let me never be shamed.
              In your bounty, O free me.
    Incline your ear to me.
          Quick, save me.
    Be my stronghold of rock,
          a fort-house to rescue me.
    For you are my crag and my bastion,
          and for your name’s sake guide me and lead me.

...and to dust you shall return.

LENT 2020: Day 39: Good Friday

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• Friday, April 10, 2020: Good Friday
  Isaiah 52.13-53.12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10.16-25; John 18.1-19.42

     How lovely on the mountains
          the steps of the bearer of good tidings,
    announcing peace, heralding good things,
          announcing triumph,
              saying to Zion: Your God reigns.

This, argues Brueggemann, is “a radical political announcement,” for Second Isaiah is writing in the midst of the exile. 

“The One...dismissed as useless and impotent,” Brueggemann writes, “has claimed his throne. And he has done so right in exile; right under the nose of the Babylonians.”

“The poet engages in the kind of guerilla warfare that is always necessary on behalf of the oppressed people,” Brueggemann argues.

And this is exactly what Good Friday is all about: guerilla warfare against the Roman Empire.

Jesus, executed, is dismissed as useless and impotent, but on the cross he claims his throne...right under the nose of the Romans.

But that is to get ahead of the story, that is to skip to Easter.

For now, though, we are stuck with the cry of the Psalmist, which becomes the cry of Jesus on the cross:
    My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Jurgen Moltmann argues that “the cry of Jesus...means not only ‘My God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ but at the same time, ‘My God, why hast thou forsaken thyself?”

Moltmann continues: “The abandonment on the cross which separates the Son from the Father is something which takes place within God himself; it is stasis within God — ‘God against God.’”

“To comprehend God in the crucified Jesus, abandoned by God, requires a ‘revolution in the concept of God,’” argues Moltmann.

By which he means this: “In the fact of Jesus’ death-cry to God, theology either becomes impossible or becomes possible only as specifically Christian theology.”

And then Moltmann asks two questions: “How can Christian theology speak of God at all in the face of Jesus’ abandonment by God? How can Christian theology not speak of God in the face of the cry of Jesus for God on the cross?”

And Moltmann leaves us with this observation: “The life of Jesus ends with an open question concerning God.”

Jesus is dead.

What does that mean about God?

At the end of Good Friday, we don’t know.

That would seem to leave us with despair.

But in the midst of exile, Brueggemann observes, Second Isaiah’s words transform: “Funeral becomes festival, grief becomes doxology, and despair turns to amazement.”

The prophet doesn’t wait for liberation to announce to Zion:
    Your God reigns.

Likewise, we don’t have to wait for Easter to announce the same.

And so the prophet ends with this good news:

     My servant shall put the righteous in the right for many,
          and their crimes he shall bear.
    Therefore I will give him shares among the many,
          and with the might he shall share out spoils,
    for he laid himself bare to death
          and was counted among the wrongdoers,
    and it is he who bore the offense of many
          and interceded for wrongdoers.

LENT 2020: Day 38: Maundy Thursday

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• Thursday, April 9, 2020: Maundy Thursday
  Exodus 12.1-14; Psalm 116.1-2, 12-19; 1 Cor. 11.23-26; John 13.1-17, 31b-35

     I love the LORD, for he has heard
          my voice, my supplications.
    For he has inclined his ears to me
          when in my days I called.

The Psalmist’s words are timely.

And timeless. 

It is essential to recall the ways God has worked throughout history, to build up our memory, to give us hope during difficult times. For if God has heard our cries in the past, then God will hear our cries again.

So it’s important to tell the Passover story, which remains central to Judaism to this day.

     And they shall take from the blood and put it on the doorposts
    and on the lintel, on the houses in which they will eat it.
    And they shall eat the meat on this night fire-roasted, with
    flatbread on bitter herbs shall they eat it.
    And thus shall you eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on
    your feet, your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste.
    It is a passover offering to the LORD.
    And the blood will be a sign…
    I will see the blood and I will pass over you.
    And this day shall be a remembrance for you

As we reflect upon our own Holy Week liturgies, we would do well to consider Terrence Fretheim’s observations on the Passover.

“A newly liberated people will create practices and institutions that are in tune with their new status. In the case of the passover, however, liturgy precedes the liberative event.”

In other words, we might expect the passover ritual to follow the salvific events of passover and exodus. Instead, the ritual actually comes before the event it commemorates.

Moreover: “When Israel reenacts the passover, it is not a fiction, as if nothing really happens in the ritual, or all that happens is a recollection of the...original event. The reenactment is as much salvific event as the original enactment.”

By which he means: “The saving power of the original event is made available ever anew to the community by God’s redeeming activity within the context of worship.”

And it is with this understanding that we should approach the other ritual in today’s Maundy Thursday readings.

     Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his
    hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.
    And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given
    all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and
    was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer
    robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water
    into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe
    them with the towel that was tied around him.

     After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had
    returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I
    have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are
    right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have
    washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.
    For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I
    have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater
    than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one
    who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if
    you do them.

     I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.
    Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By
    this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have
    love for one another."

LENT 2020: Day 37

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• Wednesday, April 8, 2020: Wednesday of Holy Week
  Isaiah 50.4-9a; Psalm 70; Hebrews 12.1-3; John 13.21-32

     God, to save me,
          LORD, to my help, hasten!

There is urgency in the Psalmist’s words, for it is Holy Week, the Wednesday of Holy Week, and we know that Jesus will be arrested tomorrow, then executed the day after.

There is urgency for us, too, today.

In the midst of this global pandemic, we cry out with the Psalmist:
    God, to save me,
          LORD, to my help, hasten!

On behalf of the healthcare workers, who never expected their jobs to entail such risk, we cry out:
    God, to save me,
          LORD, to my help, hasten!

On behalf of the essential workers, many of whom we did not consider so essential just a few weeks ago, and many of whom aren’t even paid a living wage, we cry out:
    God, to save me,
          LORD, to my help, hasten!

On behalf of the prisoners, many of whom are not able to socially distance, and many of whom are forced  their cells, we cry out:
    God, to save me,
          LORD, to my help, hasten!

And let us remember that there were those among us who were already struggling, already suffering, before the pandemic hit.
    God, to save me,
          LORD, to my help, hasten!

     As for me, I am lowly and needy.
          God, O hasten to me!
    My help, the one who frees me you are.
          LORD, do not delay.

LENT 2020: Day 36

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• Tuesday, April 7, 2020: Tuesday of Holy Week
  Isaiah 49.1-7; Psalm 71.1-14; 1 Cor. 1.18-31; John 12.20-36

     The LORD called me forth from the womb,
          from my mother’s belly he invoked my name.

The prophet’s words provide reassurance to an exiled people, for surely such an intimate God would not abandon them.

And yet just a few verses later the prophet tells of a different experience:

     Yet Zion says, “The LORD has forsaken me,
          and the master has forgotten me.”

These words are poignant, for Jesus will experience this exact same feeling before the week is out.

And so the Psalmist cries out:
    In you, O LORD, I shelter.
          Let me never be shamed.
    Through your bounty save me and free me.
          Incline your ear to me and rescue me.
    Be for me a fortress-dwelling
          to come into always.
    You ordained to rescue me,
          for you are my rock and my bastion.
    For you are my hope, master,
          O LORD, my refuge since youth.
    Upon you I relied since birth.
          From my mother’s womb you brought me out.
              To you is my praise always.
    Do not fling me away in old age,
          as my strength fails, do not forsake me.
    God, do not keep far from me.
          My God, hasten to my help!
    As for me, I shall always hope
          and add to all your praise.