A Stony Silence
Today is the start of Holy Week or Passion Week… a week-long observance of the final days of Jesus’ life on earth. One of the dangers of this week is that we gather to celebrate the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem today… and next Sunday, we gather to celebrate the triumphant joy of Easter and his resurrection from the dead… and we lose sight of the pain and suffering… the pathos and passion of all that comes between those two celebrations. But your pastor is going to share something with you today that I do not share lightly. There is no miracle in Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. There is no miracle in his resurrection from the dead. Any legitimate god could do either of those things. The miracle exists in the willingness of a god… of any god, but in this case, of our God… to humble himself… to become human… to live with all the limitations of that humanity… to allow himself to be ridiculed… brutalized… and tortured… to allow his immortal self to die any death at all… but in this case, a criminal’s death… to descend to the depths of hell… all for the love of his human creatures… his own creation. That’s the miracle. I truly believe that you cannot fully understand the joy of Easter… until you fully understand the agony of Good Friday. If you will immerse yourself this week in understanding and experiencing the pain of rejection by those you love… betrayal by your closest friends… and the loss of everything that anchors your life… then Easter will dawn with a brilliance that surpasses anything you have ever known… and your faith in your Savior will be immeasurably strengthened.
I know that there are two statements that I have made that you may disagree with this morning. The first is that there is no miracle in Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the day that we now celebrate as Palm Sunday and the second is that there is no miracle in the resurrection. Allow me to explain what I mean by those statements. I remember the day when the World Champion Chicago Bears returned to Chicago from the Super Bowl with the Lombardi Trophy in hand. It was a bitterly cold day in late January of 1986. The temperature was five degrees above zero, but the wind chill factor was twenty-three degrees below zero. It was cold, but when I got off of the train and began walking toward the Loop, I saw hundreds of others… bundled up as I was… heading in the same direction. Half a million people lined the streets of Chicago that day and joined the celebration at Daley Plaza. Confetti rained down from nearby office buildings and was blown around the Plaza by the wind until it looked like a blizzard. I collected some of that confetti and I still have it… carefully sealed in a Mason jar for posterity. It took an hour for the team buses to make it through the crowd to the Plaza itself. But nothing could dampen the enthusiasm of the crowd. Everyone there cheered until they were hoarse. And why not? We had waited for a long time for a winning team! We all wanted to be part of the celebration.
When the six-time NBA champion Chicago Bulls had their victory celebration in June of 1998, thousands of people gathered in Grant Park to celebrate what was becoming, by then, an annual ritual. It seemed like nothing could stop Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippen and the rest of the team from simply walking away with the honors each year. This was the sixth NBA championship in eight years… and I have a t-shirt for each one. The adulation of the crowd was tremendous and I was there on the periphery, sharing in the team’s glory. Once again, there was confetti… and, once again, I collected some of it and I still have it.
There were other times when I was part of an enthusiastic crowd. I was standing on the corner of Sixth and Congress in Austin, Texas, at midnight when the new Millennium began… and again on that blistering August day when Austin welcomed home its hometown hero, Lance Armstrong, after he won his sixth Tour de France. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of a local triumph. It is easy to join a cheering crowd. Been there… done that… got the shirt. (P)
A god… one with the power to create life… one who lives with the heavenly hosts on high… one who can heal the sick with a touch… or the blind with some spit… such a god should have no difficulty at all orchestrating a simple procession with cheering multitudes… especially given the ease with which ordinary people can be drawn into a celebration of any kind. Think about it: choirs of angels sang at his birth… water turned into wine at a wedding… legions of demons fled from his presence... and the winds and the seas were calmed with a word. Now, we’re just talking about one donkey… a few disciples… and a town filled with holiday travelers who were ready for a celebration. Any ordinary god could have done it. Easter might have been more difficult. Well, perhaps for you and me… but for the ruler of the universe… the one who created the world and breathed life into the dust of the earth… for Almighty God? I don’t think so.
Now imagine, for a moment, having knowledge and power that is beyond comprehension with no limits or boundaries of any kind… having a home in glory with the cosmos at your feet, constantly surrounded by worshipping angels and saints… and possessing a holiness so intense … that its sheer presence shields you from all sin… misery… grief… pain… and all that we struggle against here on earth… and then imagine giving it up… all of it… to live in one place… surrounded by human misery… confined by human limitations… enduring all the poverty… the pain… the ugliness of men’s souls… the cruelty… the greed… the corruption… all of what we see every day. Why? Only because of love… and the desire for a relationship with an ungrateful… unthinking… irresponsible… careless creature with limited vision.
That’s why Palm Sunday isn’t enough. That’s why Easter isn’t enough. To fully understand the depths of God’s love, we must experience that long, lonely night in the Garden of Gethsemane amid the sleeping disciples… we must experience the betrayal of our closest friends… and their denial and desertion in the face of death… we must experience the long, painful journey through the trial in the dark watches of the night… and the suffering on the cross at dawn. If we don’t, we risk the danger of just being one on the periphery of the crowd… of getting caught up in the excitement of victory without understanding the cost. It’s easy to do that.
On that first Palm Sunday, the Pharisees told Jesus to silence his disciples. Jesus responded, “What would be the point of that? If I silence them, then even the stones would cry out.” Yes, even the stones would acknowledge the kingship of their creator… as we must. And that acclamation was… is… long overdue.
I had the privilege of seeing the movie “Amazing Grace” yesterday. It is the story of William Wilberforce and his long struggle to abolish the slave trade in Great Britain in the 1700’s. He was ultimately successful in achieving his goal… but only after twenty long years of fighting against big business and the wealthy landowners in the House of Lords… twenty years of introducing the bill at each session of Parliament only to watch it go down to defeat time after time… watching friends keep their distance and suffering the ridicule of others. William Wilberforce believed that God had called him to this task… and each time he became discouraged, God put new people in his path to sustain him… but it was a long and lonely fight. As accolades for his vision and tenacity were read in Parliament in 1807 when the bill finally passed, the acclaim of the crowd was sweet, but it did not come without incredible pain and suffering. And yet, in the periphery of that crowd who stood to celebrate his victory, there were those who did not know the cost… those who had never shared the burden.
You and I… we have a choice. We can live our lives at the periphery of the crowd… showing up for every victory celebration… allowing ourselves to get caught up in the excitement of the moment… sharing the accolades, but doing little of the work… or … we can walk the long, lonely road with Jesus… eating with tax collectors and sinners… seeking out the lost … ministering to those whom the world rejects… making a difference in their lives, regardless of the cost to ourselves… or the loss of public esteem and favor in our community. Jesus didn’t do what was popular… what was sexy… what was important to the leaders of society in his time. He reached out to those on margin… to those falling off the edge… to those who had no one else to turn to… and with these rejected ones, he built God’s kingdom.
Let me tell you one final story: Hidden behind a hill in Cairo is the world of the zabaleen, or garbage people. Here, more than sixty thousand people survive on the fringes of Cairo’s eighteen million by collecting ten thousand tons of Cairo's rubbish every day and recycling it in their homes. Long seen as the most dangerous, poorest and filthiest part of the capital, "Garbage Village" has undergone a renaissance that is being attributed to the work of one man with a vision from God.
In 1974, a man who lived in Garbage Village asked a friend of his called Farahat to explain the Gospel to him. Farahat was initially reluctant because of the dangerous reputation the area had, but in the end his friend persuaded him, and Farahat led what became a series of Bible studies in the man's home. One study led to many more. Later, Farahat was trained and ordained by the Orthodox Church and has worked in the Garbage Village ever since, going under the name Father Simon. The zabaleen are Christians. There are seven million Christians in Egypt, making up somewhere between eight and sixteen percent of the population, but the church in Garbage Village is now the largest in Egypt, seating fifteen thousand people, with a regular worshipping congregation of three to four thousand. This sanctuary is carved out of the hillside with inscriptions carved into the rock that say, "You will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and glory", and "If they keep silent, the rocks will cry out".
For now, the rocks maintain their stony silence as they wait to see what we will do. Are we just participating in the celebrations of Jesus’ life… or are we also doing the work that Jesus did? Will we only be there for the mountaintop experiences… or are we willing to walk the long and lonely road that Jesus walked? Are we just one on the periphery of the crowd… getting caught up in the excitement of moment without understanding the cost? How will our lives be different this Easter because of our understanding of all that happens between today and next Sunday. I want to challenge all of us to live out God’s vision… to truly walk the talk. Amen.
Luke 19:28-40; Isaiah 50:4-9