It all started out so well. Jesus enters Jerusalem as many people are preparing for the Passover festival, both those who live in Jerusalem and those traveling there for Passover. The large crowd proclaims him King; those who had been waiting for the rightful heir to the kingdom to come and make things right—to show then that God is on their side, as the scriptures proclaim—were not just hopeful, not just cautiously optimistic, but exuberant that this was finally happening. But Jesus had already warned his disciples that he was going to suffer and die, even as he didn’t disagree with their assertions that he was the Messiah. Somehow the suffering and dying part didn’t fit with their understanding of a conquering hero that would restore things to how they should be.
Tish Harrison Warren writes in her book “Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch of Weep” that “God does not keep all bad things from happening to us. He cannot be trusted to do that because he never made that promise. Doing so is, apparently, not his job. Our Creator lets us remain vulnerable. But if God cannot be trusted to keep bad things from happening to us, how can he be trusted at all?”
It seems that Jesus didn’t believe that God would keep bad things from happening to him. There was a crowd that proclaimed him king on Sunday; there was a crowd that demanded his execution on Thursday. Jesus, as God in human form, could have stopped that, if that is how God works. But it seems that that is not how God works.
That’s how we want God to work. We want God to make everything work out in our favor, even if that means it works out decidedly against someone else. We want God to take away our pain and suffering, and ideally cause us never to experience grief or loss. We insist that we are good people, blessed people, maybe even chosen people—shouldn’t God recognize that and reward us? Warren continues, “I want justice; I want resurrection; I want wholeness, wellness, and restoration. And I won’t be fully satisfied until God—before whose face our questions die away—sets every last thing right.”
Of course we want that. And we want it now, not later. And in our most charitable times we want if for everyone, not just for ourselves. But most of the time we want it for ourselves. So how then DOES God work, if not to ease pain and suffering and make my world right?
Warren later writes, “Mysteriously, God does not take away our vulnerability. He enters into it. Jesus left a place where there is no night to enter into our darkness. He met with blisters and indignation, with fractured relationships and the death of friends, with an oppressive empire, the indignity of poverty, and the terror of violence . . . God did not keep bad things happening to God himself. . . . [In] hardship we do not look to Jesus solely as one who has been there before, once upon a time in a distant land. We find he is here with us, in the present tense. He participates in our suffering, even as—mysteriously—in our own suffering we participate in the fullness of Christ’s life.”
That ends up being a bigger triumph than becoming king on earth for a few years. For Jesus, and for us.
GOSPEL Matthew 16:13-23
13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ 14 And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ 15 He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ 16 Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ 17 And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ 20 Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’ 23 But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
GOSPEL Luke 19:29-40
29 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” just say this: “The Lord needs it.” ’ 32 So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ 34 They said, ‘The Lord needs it.’ 35 Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38 saying,
‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!’
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ 40He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’
GOSPEL Luke 22:45-54, 23:1-5, 18-25, 32-33, 44-46
45 When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, 46 and he said to them, ‘Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.’
47 While he was still speaking, suddenly a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him; 48 but Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?’ 49 When those who were around him saw what was coming, they asked, ‘Lord, should we strike with the sword?’ 50 Then one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. 51 But Jesus said, ‘No more of this!’ And he touched his ear and healed him. 52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple police, and the elders who had come for him, ‘Have you come out with swords and clubs as if I were a bandit? 53 When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness!’
54 Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house. But Peter was following at a distance.
1 Then the assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus before Pilate. 2 They began to accuse him, saying, ‘We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.’ 3 Then Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ He answered, ‘You say so.’ 4 Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, ‘I find no basis for an accusation against this man.’ 5 But they were insistent and said, ‘He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.’
18 Then they all shouted out together, ‘Away with this fellow! Release Barabbas for us!’ 19 (This was a man who had been put in prison for an insurrection that had taken place in the city, and for murder.) 20 Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again; 21 but they kept shouting, ‘Crucify, crucify him!’ 22 A third time he said to them, ‘Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no ground for the sentence of death; I will therefore have him flogged and then release him.’ 23 But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. 24 So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted. 25 He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished.
32 Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 33 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.
44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last.