Standing Under the Scriptures
April 12, 2009

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

As I said in our class last Sunday, it has become our tradition (!) not to meet on Easter Sunday, and we will follow it this year.

The two passages we considered last time, from Philippians and Mark, were both apposite for Palm Sunday. We noted the character of the Philippians passage (2.5-11) as an early Christian hymn; whether Paul composed it himself or whether incorporated an existing one has been debated by scholars. In either case it encapsulates remarkably the gospel of Jesus’ ministry, towards the climax of which Palm Sunday is driving. We spoke of the two movements of which it consists and of their complete reciprocation. Firstly, Jesus empties himself of all distinctions to which he might have been entitled, not only divine but human, his obedience extending even to death on the cross. Then in an equal and opposite response to his utter obedience, God exalts him utterly, giving him a name above every name, the object of all conceivable homage. But however magnificent this spectacle, it is not just for us to gaze on. As reflected in the opening verse---Have the same mind in you that was in Christ Jesus---we are called to follow Jesus in his obedience. This means similarly not clinging to our entitlements but accepting their necessary loss, indeed accepting whatever befalls us as from the Lord’s hand. And the passage teaches that when we do, the Lord will exalt us too. Our assurance of this is in the Easter event, to which the passage points.

But the obedience to which the Philippians passage calls us is not just passive, letting events roll over us. This is brought out by our Mark passage (11.1-11): Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. For despite his previous reticence about his identity (his “messianic secret”), in riding on a colt as he did he is performing a messianic act. Mark does not make this explicit the way Matthew (21.5) does. But surely he is evoking Zechariah 9.9.

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you, triumphant and victorious is he,
Humble and riding on an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.

Further, Jesus follows his entry with actions and words which, however necessary, can be seen as provocative. The next day he drives the traders and money-changers out of the temple, a direct affront to the religious establishment. And he does not refrain from parables and sayings pointed at them. His obedience comes instead when, in response to their inevitable, forceful reaction to him, he neither employs force of his own nor flees. Instead he accepts what they mete out to him, not as defeated but as triumphing over them and all principalities and powers, through his resurrection. Herein is our charter as his followers: if we do not hold back from witness but bear it boldly, while also accepting the hostile reaction of those whom it discomfits, God will make us triumphant too.

Three Sundays ago we were concerned with Jesus’ saying, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up… “(John 3.14). In my account of our discussion I spoke of the impression that this had made on Luther, to which our rector had drawn attention. In connection with it I cited a paragraph of Luther’s, to the effect that our guilt is not to be shied away from but rather to be embraced. I would like to elaborate on the point because many, perhaps even Karl Barth, seem not to have fully appreciated it---although Cranmer in his Eucharistic liturgy grasped it well.

It is to be understood, I think, more in biographical than doctrinal terms. (For biographies see Roland Bainton’s Here I Stand and, particularly, Alister’ McGrath’s Luther’s Theology of the Cross, on which my book’s account of Luther is mainly based.) As a young monk Luther was beset with guilt. He tried the standard medieval ways of assuaging it---confession, austerities, pilgrimage to Rome---to the point of exhaustion. Finally, through his pondering of the Psalms and of Paul, especially Romans 1.17, it came to him that none of these remedies would ever avail. If, however, giving up all his struggling he accepted his guilt, he could trust God, through Christ, to forgive him. This realization, he exclaimed, “immediately made me feel that I had been born again, and as though I had entered through open gates into paradise itself.”

Luther’s experience is illuminated, I think, by an episode that has stuck with me from my youth. In the early days of aviation the phenomenon of the spin emerged. Planes would stall, go out of control and, no matter how hard their pilots struggled, crash. Many lost their lives in this way. To one in this situation, however, it was given to put his plane into a dive, the one maneuver remaining possible. He expected the outcome to be no different, only quicker. Instead the plane pulled out of its spin. And not only was he able to land safely, he could tell other pilots how to overcome this devastating problem.

So also, I think, with us. We all have guilt feelings---and are guilty. But instead of attempting in the modern fashion to minimize them or to rationalize them away, we need to embrace them, not on the basis of some doctrinal construction even biblically based but existentially, as a living experience. Christ’s death and resurrection makes this possible for us. And liturgy is especially adapted to it, in speaking more to the heart than to the mind. For it is then that God’s mercy can come in on us and lift our guilt from us. And the joy of our deliverance will be such that we will be impelled to share it with others.

See you on Sunday the 19th.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted