Love--Anyway, Anyhow: Luke 23:1-49 - Palm Sunday

Cross by Kristoffer Børsting on flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

A fellow Christian once told me, “you won’t be seeing me at church during Holy Week. I have enough sadness in my life.”

I’ve never forgotten that—though only lately have I come to appreciate the raw honesty of this statement. He had indeed suffered numerous terrible tragedies.

A woman said she could not believe in a God who killed his son. She had been abused by her father when she was young…

A self-described secular humanist thought it was absurd that humankind would need a savior, because we have the power to make the world better, if only we exercised the will to do so.

Let’s be frank—it’s ludicrous to describe the passion of Jesus as “good news.” Jesus’ suffering is cruel and unjust. His death beyond tragic. The cross demands an explanation.

Some will say that a just and righteous God must punish humankind for sin; otherwise, God is not just. Therefore, Jesus stood up and said, “lay it all on me.” But how is it just to punish the innocent and let the guilty off the hook?

At the same time, you can’t walk through a place like Auschwitz and still believe that humankind possesses the power and the will to save itself from such heinous evil. Nor can you look at an innocent man being crucified and still believe that humankind does not need a savior?

The cruelty and violence Jesus suffers is the cruelty and violence we do to each other. It’s sin that welcomes Jesus as a hero one day, then five days later sends him out to die—because he gave you nothing that wanted and demanded your all. It’s sin that hands Jesus over in exchange for money; for security; for power and personal advancement. It’s not God punishing Jesus so much as it is YOU and ME punishing Jesus because he’s just not what you’re looking for in a Messiah.

But Jesus didn’t die to appease the wrath of God. After all, Jesus is God. But here’s what Jesus does about sin—he takes it into his flesh and blood. Instead of turning it back on you, he receives it as nails on his cross and he dies.

Jesus’ self-sacrifice is an act of love that goes far beyond the horizons of what we’d consider love to require. There is no greater love than for that love to persist and remain as strong as ever, even when that love is violently rejected. There is no greater love than to forgive someone when they’re not sorry for what they’ve done. There is no greater love than for God to see a fallen humanity suffering sickness, poverty, and death—and to be born right into it. There is no greater love than for God to suffer the complete wrath of death and the devil. Then God deals sin and death a death blow by raising Jesus from the dead.

And to everyone who would respond to the cross with horror, with anger, with sadness, with offense—Jesus says, “this is all for you.”

To the man who couldn’t bear the pain of Holy Week services because of all the pain and sorrow in his life, Jesus says, “see my cross as the promise of my presence with you.”

To the woman who couldn’t fathom a loving God killing his son, Jesus says, “I suffer the same abuse—and your abuser have the last word over you.”

To those who think humankind can save itself, Jesus says “only I can raise the dead.” To those who faint with fear and foreboding about the cruelty and violence in our world, Jesus says, “take heart, I have overcome the world—and you will, too—when you trust in my promises and when you abide in my love.”

“My love persists against all opposition. My love prevails against all enemies. My love stretches from heaven to hell, and no one can stop me. My love will triumph, anyway—anyhow.”