…he
humbled himself and became obedient to death. (Philippians 2:8)
The usual way, in the church, of dealing with the
next week or so is to follow the drama.
It begins with Palm Sunday and the children singing Hosanna… all the
events of Holy Week leading up to the Last Supper… the cruel horror of Good
Friday… the empty abyss of Saturday… the lighting of the Easter flame, and the
Good News of Easter morning. People
involve themselves in the drama – and in the human realities of cruelty and
pain -- as much or as little as they choose.
Some make sure to remain securely within their comfort zones.
Not having to preside at these things any more as I
once did, there is space to look at it in other ways. I was struck by Paul’s phrase about Jesus, in
the middle of the lyrical passage in Philippians 2… he became obedient to death.
We have encountered that word obedient before. The Greek word Paul uses here is formed from
the verb meaning to listen. The
only difference is a prefix which intensifies it – so it means to listen
intently, constantly, to devote attention.[1] “Obedient” certainly does not mean that Jesus
doggedly obeyed an imperious divine will that decreed death for him. Obedient
to death, rather, means that he trusted the mutual bond of love with the
Father, even down the path which led where it did. It is such a shame that the words obey and
obedience denote in our day mainly some slavish adherence to authority or to
some law. The biblical word by contrast
implies a life of listening and consent, in love. Jesus knew, I think, that that bond,
enlivened by prayer, continues through and beyond death.
Approaching Easter 2018, then, what I seem to see is
a civilisation (if it can be called that), at any rate a generation marked
increasingly by death, swamped almost everywhere by guns and other ways of
killing. State-sponsored assassination
is the latest, nothing new in history admittedly, but it has become more
blatant. I see a western culture
terrified of ageing and of vulnerability – and more recently for some reason, the
growing phenomenon of senility, like a premature extended goodbye… But whoever we are, as we know, we are
walking that same trail of mortality.
Chris Nichol, who runs the Sunday morning hymn
session on channel 1, last Sunday described Jesus’s path to the cross
evocatively as “Me Too”. Jesus
identifies in his own life and body the path we follow… which for many, often, becomes
bloody, painful, pointless or humiliating.
“Me Too”, the phrase that has emerged for women to identify with the
abuse of women, serves quite well to describe Jesus going to Jerusalem and
Calvary. But the point is deeper than
that. Jesus walked that path not as some
grim inevitability, but in loving obedience, in the bond of abiding. It was no less terrible for him, no less
frightening, and I think the gospel narratives reflect that. But he was hearing a call of love, as we
might. When Pilate cynically asked “What
is truth?” Jesus was in touch with light and truth, and the love that rules
sovereign over life and death. Moreover,
arraigned before Pilate, bound, flogged and humiliated, he witnessed to it, you
may recall, by silence.
No comments:
Post a Comment