Sermon by the rev'd. Pamela Snare

Sermon
March 25, 2007
Palm/Passion Sunday

The Rev’d Pamela Snare

“A great number of people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wiling for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children’” (Luke 23:27-28).

Today we are invited to enter into, to participate in the Passion of Jesus Christ. It takes no small amount of intestinal fortitude to do this, because it is the story of human betrayal, inconstancy, and weakness; of religious and political expediency and injustice; of innocent suffering; of physical and verbal abuse, and torture. In short, it has much in common with the news stories which we see and hear broadcast daily.

And that, frankly, it what makes it so believable. The names of the characters may have changed, but the same sort of cruelty, deception, twisting of words, false accusations, abuse, suffering and betrayal still take place in our world everyday. If you find yourself mourning, lamenting over these stories of human cruelty and injustice, abuse and suffering, deception and betrayal, blessed are you; and the Passion of Jesus Christ and this week of solemn remembrance of his story are for you.

They are for you because the Passion shows us, in no uncertain terms, that there is something wrong with this world and with us human beings who inhabit it. It paints in vivid colors the deep, profound fault line in human nature: the fault line of political leaders who cave in to the popular will, even when that will is mistaken; the fault line of religious leaders who are so zealous for the preservation of their religious system and its rules that they have lost sight of the mercy of God and can no longer recognize the good – or God – when they see him; the fault line of human fear which leads us to deny the truth rather than to risk suffering for it; the fault line of human self-centeredness and pride which lead us to betray God because he hasn’t fulfilled our expectations of him and we desire our own will over his; the fault line of human insecurity which leads us to mock, ridicule, and insult others because we perceive them to be weak, or different from us.

It takes interior fortitude to enter into this story, to see ourselves in it, because it reveals to us the truth about ourselves. The truth of human weakness and inconstancy; the truth of human deception and self-interest; the truth of human insecurity and fear.

“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” Today we are invited to see ourselves in all those characters of the Passion and to weep over ourselves; over our weakness and inconstancy, our deception and self-interest, our insecurity and fear, over all that falls short of the example of Christ.

The psalmist writes, “The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps. 51:18). “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and will save those whose spirits are crushed” (Ps. 34:18).

If we allow our hearts to be broken, our spirits to be crushed this week by the weight of our own sin, then we will strangely find that burden lifted, carried away by him who hangs on the cross. For he is bearing on his shoulders not only the sins of those people then – of Judas and Peter and Pilate and Herod and all the others – but our sins as well; our weaknesses and inconstancies, our deceptions and sins of self-interest, our insecurities and fears. And he is taking them to the bosom of his Father, where there is mercy and forgiveness and healing, and the promise of new life.

The throne of grace is the cross of Jesus Christ. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are…Let us therefore [this week] approach the throne of grace [the cross] with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in [the] time of [our] need” (Hebrews 4:15-16).

Let us not be afraid or ashamed to be beggars before the cross of Christ. For therein we will find our healing and our salvation.

The Reverend Pamela P. Snare

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