Holy Saturday

 April 8, 2023

 

I seem to say this every year on Holy Saturday morning.

 

I LOVE this service.

 

I love its simplicity.

 

I love its solemnity.  

 

I love this time to gather and just be quiet.

 

I love the fact that, after all that we’ve been through liturgically in these last few days and all that we will still go through liturgically in the next day, here we are.

 

Here we are in a church stripped of everything symbolic.

 

The cross hangs before us, veiled in black.

 

The altar is stripped.

 

The sanctuary light, which gently reminds us of the sacred Presence, is extinguished and has been taken away.

 

For those of us who delight in the Presence of God—who strive and long for the Presence of God—who find our purpose and meaning in the Presence of God—today is a bleak day.

 

That Presence seems…gone.

 

Or, at least, hidden from us.

 

For now, in this moment, on this Holy Saturday morning, time seems to sort of stand still.

 

We are caught in this breathless moment—between the excruciating death of Jesus on the cross yesterday and the glorious Light that is about dawn on us tonight and tomorrow morning.  

 

For now—in this moment—we are here.

 

And Jesus…

 

Where is Jesus?

 

We imagine his body lying there in the dark stillness of the tomb, wrapped and broken and bloodied.

 

But where is Jesus?

 

Not his body.

 

But…him?

 

One of the reasons I love this service is because it gives me that opportunity to speak about one of my favorite Christian subjects—the so-called “Harrowing of Hell.  

 

The Harrowing of Hell is that wonderful concept in which we ponder Jesus’ descent to hell to bring back those captured there.

 

For me, it is so packed full of meaning.

 

Hell.

 

That place we thought was the end all of end-all’s.  

 

That place that we dread and fear and cringe from.

 

That place in which lies every one of our greatest nightmares and the most horrendous things we could even possibly imagine.  

 

That black, bleak, miserable place.

 

But, we have to remind ourselves that for Jesus and the people of his time, there really was no concept of “hell” as we have been told regarding it.

 

For Jewish people at his time, there was a term that was used for the place where dead people go.

 

“Sheol.”

 

Now, Sheol has come to be used as another term for hell in popular Christian understanding.

 

But ultimately, again, we need to understand, that a Hebrew understanding of death from the time of Jesus just simply does not show this to be the truth.

 

For them “Sheol” was simply the place where all the dead go when they die.

 

To put it even more simply, “sheol” could simply mean “the grave,” the “pit” in which one is buried.

 

We get an idea of this thinking in the Psalm 6, wherein we hear the psalmist say in death there is no mention of God’s name, and in the grave no one praises God.

 

Essentially, for them, the grave itself was hell—the place wherein our existence ends and cease to “be.”

 

Even for Jesus, when he talks of “hell,” he actually uses the word “Gehenna.”

 

Genehnna is an actual place on earth, the so-called Ge Hinnom or valley of Hinnom, referenced in 2 Chronicles Chapter 28 in which in which King Ahaz did “evil” int eh sight of God by sacrificing children int eh fire to the pagan gods.

 

It became a dump, where they burned garbage.

 

It was cursed ground.

 

He is being descriptive in his use of imagery here.

 

But, there is no place of eternal metaphysical torment in the Hebrew scriptures.

 

And Jesus would have had no comprehension of our modern-Hellenistic, neo-Platonic understanding of “Hell” as a cavern “down there” in which souls are tortured for all eternity.

 

In fact, most of our current, popular understanding of hell comes actually from, yes, a poet.

 

Dante’s Inferno is very much the source of so much of our views of hell.

 

And it is some great poetry.

 

But Jesus himself as well as his first followers would be shocked and confused by such descriptions of the afterlife. 

 

So, when we talk about the Hallowing of Hell, we are really simply talking about Jesus going into the grave, into the place wherein all people who die go.

 

For the Jews of Jesus’ time and for Jesus’ first followers Sheol was the place where Adam and Eve and all their deceased ancestors went.

 

It was simply the place where the dead go.

 

And let’s face it, we fear this as well.

 

We fear the grave.

 

We fear “Sheol.”

 

We fear death and nonexistence and the end of “being.”

 

Death scares us.

 

What I love about today and this concept of the Harrowing of Hell is that the fear of this place is broken.  

 

The fear that there is a place where we will go when we die.

 

The grave.

 

And the grave seems to us like a place in which God’s love and light might not be able to descend.

 

But what this morning’s liturgy is all about is that even in the grave we cannot escape God’s love.

 

Why?

 

Because even God’s chosen One, Jesus, God’s very Son, Jesus the Messiah, went there. 

 

But by raising Jesus up from that place, God has “harrowed” Sheol.

 

In Christ, God has raked “hell” over.

 

Even death and the grave and “Sheol” have no power over God and God’s love.

 

What seems to be death’s ultimately victory and God’s defeat is, in the fact, the exact opposite.

 

Now, this image carries over into our own immediately lives.

 

Yes, we fear the grave.

 

We fear separation from life and light and all the good things we have known or hope in.

 

But we have to remember that such things are not only something after one’s death.

 

Hell, for us, is not necessarily that metaphysical place of eternal punishment.

 

Hell can be right here, in our own lives.

 

In our own minds.

 

In our own day-to-day lives.

 

Hell can be depression or severe anxiety or abuse or chronic physical pain or any of the prisons we may find ourselves in in this life.

 

We all experience multiple deaths in this life.

 

We all know what our own hells are and how isolating they can be.

 

We know how impenetrable they seem.

 

What today shows us that there is no such thing as an impenetrable hell.

 

At least not for God.

 

No matter how dark, how terrible our hells might be, God is stronger than any hell.

 

Sheol or the grave or eternal death are not part of God’s plan for us.

 

Yes, Jesus went down into the grave, into Sheol, into that place in which all the dead go.

 

But he did not stay there.

 

God raised him up from that place.

 

And because God did that for Jesus, God will do that for us as well.

 

In that famous ikon of the Harrowing of hell, what do we see?

 

We see the tombs broken open.

 

We see Jesus being raised.

 

And as he is raised, in one hand he is grasping Adam’s hand and in the other hand is grasping Eve’s hand.

 

And below them is a skull and bones.

 

God’s raising of Jesus broke open the hold of death.

 

It shattered Sheol.

 

The grave was not the end, after all.

 

Even there, God’s love descends.

 

Because that is what God’s love is able to do.

 

Nothing can separate us from that love.

 

Not even the deepest hell.

 

Not even the dank darkness of a grave.

 

It is incredible when we think of that.  

 

And, for me anyway, it fills me with such hope, such joy, that even the bleakness of this morning doesn’t seem so bleak.

 

Oh yes, Jesus has died.  

 

He truly died—he truly tasted death and partook of it fully.

 

He went into the grave.

 

He descended into Sheol.

 

And we too must die as well.

 

We too will taste death and partake in it fully.  

 

But the fact is that, not even death can separate us from God.

 

That place wherein we find ourselves, lost, lifeless, without hope, even there  we cannot escape God.

 

In the hells of our lives, even there God shows us that just as Jesus was raised from that place, so too will we.  

 

No matter how far separated we might seem from God, God will cover that great distance and come to us.

 

Even there.

 

Even there Christ will find us and give us new life.  

 

Christ will grasp us by the hand and will pull us out from our hell.  

 

That is what Holy Saturday is all about and that is certainly why I love this day.

 

 So, on this Holy Saturday, when all seems bleak and lost and without purpose, let us remember: God is at work even in those moments when we think God is absent or distant from us.  

 

The Presence of God is with us even when it seems furthest from us.  

 

In the darkest moments of our lives, the bright dawn is about to break.

 

Let us wait patiently and breathlessly for it.

 

 

Good Friday

April 7, 2023

 

Isaiah 52.13-53.12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 4.14-16; 5;7-9; John 18.1-19.42

 

+ The main theme in my sermons for this Lenten season was the theme of brokenness.

 

Brokenness. 

 

In many ways, that is what this day is all about.

 

Brokenness.

 

The Jesus we encounter today is slowly, deliberately being broken.

 

This moment we are experiencing right now is a moment of absolute and complete brokenness.

 

Brokenness, in the shadow of the cross, the nails, the thorns. Broken by the whips.  

 

Broken under the weight of the Cross.  

 

Broken by his friends,

 

Broken by his loved ones.

 

Broken by the thugs and the soldiers.

 

Broken by all those who turned away from him and betrayed him.

 

 In this dark moment, our own brokenness seems more profound, more real, as well.  

 

God seems distant or nonexistent.

 

We can feel this brokenness now in a way we never have before.

 

Our brokenness is shown back to us like the reflection in a dark mirror as we look upon that broken Body on the cross.

 

 Bishop Steven Charleston  wrote a few years ago:

 

 “There are few people of faith who have not crossed through that dark day when they wondered if the God on whom they depended had gone away, deserted them, or even died. In the pain of our own mortality, when we face the loss of those for whom we care, when illness strikes us down or injustice overwhelms us, it is not hard to understand why we have felt this way. To receive the light, we must accept the darkness. We must go into the tomb of all that haunts us, even the loss of faith itself, to discover a truth older than death.”

 

We’ve all known this in our own lives.

 

We too have wondered at times whether the God on whom we depend, the God we love and believe in, has gone away, has deserted us, or has simply died.

 

It is a bleak feeling.

 

 We have known those moments of loss and abandonment.

 

We have known those moments in which we have been betrayed.  

 

We have known those moments when we have lost someone we have cared for so much, either through death or a broken relationship.  

 

We have known those moments of darkness in which we cannot even imagine what light is even like again.

 

But, for as followers of Jesus, we know there is light.

 

Even today, we know it is there, just beyond our grasp.  

 

We know that what seems like a bleak, black moment will be replaced by the blinding Light of the Resurrection.  

 

This God we thought had died, this God we thought had abandoned us and left us to our enemies and to our brokenness has raised us up from our brokenness and has renewed us again.

 

 

What seems like a moment of unrelenting despair will soon be replaced by an unleashing of unrestrained joy.

This present despair will be turned completely around.

 

This present darkness will be vanquished.

 

This present pain will be replaced with a comfort that brings about peace.

 

This present brokenness will be healed fully and completely, leaving not even a scar.

 

In a few hours our brokenness will be made whole.

 

And will know there is no real defeat, ultimately.  

 

Ultimately there will be victory.

 

Victory over everything we are feeling sadness over at this moment.

 

Victory over the pain, and brokenness, and loss, and death we are commemorating

 

This is what today is about.   

 

This is what our journey in following Jesus brings to us.

 

All we need to do is go where the journey leads us.

 

All we need to do is follow Jesus, yes, even through this broken moment.

 

And, in following, we will know joy—even a joy that, for this moment, seems far off.  

 

 

 

Palm Sunday

 

April 2, 2023

 

Matthew 26.14-27.66

 

+ Here we are this morning at the beginning of Holy Week.

 

Every year, without fail, I begin this week with a big mix of emotions.

 

Certainly, this week is the apex of the entire Church Year.

 

Everything seems to lead either to this week or away from it.

 

But, on a much more personal level, I gotta say:

 

I actually kinda dread Holy Week.

 

Now, I know probably your first reaction to my saying that is that you think I am dreading all the extra work, extra liturgies and services of this coming week.

 

Actually, no.

 

I don’t dread that at all.

 

After all, I’m a church nerd.

 

I like doing church liturgies and, frankly, doing the work I was hired to do.

 

I don’t dread Holy Week for any of those reasons.

 

I dread this coming week for one big reason:

 

I dread the emotional aspects of this coming week.

 

I think the biggest toll of this coming week on me is the emotional toll.

 

How can it not, after all?

 

We, as followers of Jesus, as people who love Jesus and balance our lives on his life and teachings and guidance, are emotionally tied to this man.

 

This Jesus is not just some mythical character to us.

 

Yes, of course, he is the divine Son of God.

 

For us, he is the Messiah.

 

He is the Chosen One.

 

But on a personal level, he is a friend, a mentor, a very vital and essential part—no, he is our brother.

 

We relate to Jesus.

 

He shows us that what he endured in his life is what we too endure in our own lives.

 

As the one we have chosen to follow, we keep our eyes on him.

 

And, because we have chosen to follow him, we also must follow him even through this coming week.

 

So, to have to go follow Jesus through the emotional rollercoaster of this coming week is hard.  

 

 And today, we get the whole emotional rollercoaster in our liturgy and in our two Gospel readings.

 

Here we find a microcosm of the roller coaster ride of what is to come this week.

 

What begins this morning as joyful ends with jeers and bleakness.

 

The Jesus who enters Jerusalem is the Jesus who has done some incredible things in the past few weeks, at least in the very long Gospel readings we’ve been hearing over the last few weeks.

 

Three weeks ago, he turned the Samaritan woman’s life around.

 

Two weeks ago, he gave sight to a man born blind.

 

Last week, he raised his friend Lazarus from the dead.

 

This day even begin with us, his followers, singing our praises to the One whom God has sent to us, waving palm branches in victory.

 

He is, at the beginning of this week, popular and accepted.

 

For this moment, everyone seems to love him.

 

But this procession of his is different than the normal procession of a monarch.

 

The great theologian Marcus Borg (who lived as a teenager in that trailer park on Main Avenue in Moorhead back in the 1950s): wrote this:

 

[Pontius] Pilate’s procession embodied the powers, the glory, and violence of an empire that ruled the world. Jesus’ procession embodied an alternative procession and alternative journey…an anti-imperial and non-violent procession.”

 

Such a procession, as wonderful as it seems, is, however, dangerous.

 

Such an anti-imperial, non-violent procession is a threat.

 

And as a result…within moments, a darkness falls.

 

It all turns and goes horribly wrong.  

 

What begins with rays of sunshine, ends in gathering dark storm clouds.

 

Those joyful, exuberant shouts turn into cries of anger and accusation.

 

Those who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem have fled.

 

They have simply disappeared from sight.

 

And in their place an angry crowd shouts and demands the death of Jesus.

 

Even his followers, those who almost arrogantly proclaimed themselves followers of Jesus, have disappeared.

 

Their arrogance has turned to embarrassment and shame.

 

Even the Samaritan woman, whose life he turned around, the man born blind, and his friend Lazarus have disappeared and are nowhere in sight.

 

Even God seems distant and absent from Jesus.

 

Jesus, whom we encounter at the beginning of this liturgy this morning surrounded by crowds of cheering, joyful people, is by the end of it, alone, abandoned, deserted—shunned.

 

Everyone he considered a friend—everyone he would have trusted—has left him.

 

And in his aloneness, he knows how they feel about him.

 

He knows that he is an embarrassment to them.

 

He knows that, in their eyes, he is a failure.

 

Some of us have known this feeling.

 

We feel for him because we too have felt abandoned in our lives.

 

We too have felt that those closest to us have turned their backs on us.

 

We too have felt that even God is distant from us and we are truly, truly alone, vulnerable to the dark forces at work in this world.

 

Throughout this coming Holy Week, the emotional roller coaster ride will get more intense.

 

On Maundy Thursday the celebratory meal of Passover will turn into a dark and lonely night of betrayal.

 

Jesus will descend to his lowest emotional point after he washes the feet of his disciples and heads out into the garden of Gethsemane.

 

In the garden, he will cry out to God in his distress.

 

Friday will be a day of more betrayal, of torture and of an agonizing violent death in the burning hot sun.

 

Saturday morning, he descends into the grave, into that dark abyss of death.

 

And by doing so, he ultimately faces death for all it is.

 

Saturday will be a day of keeping watch at the grave that would, under normal circumstances, be quickly forgotten.

 

Through our liturgies, we are able to walk with Jesus on this painful journey and to experience the emotional ups and downs of all that will happen.

 

And next Sunday morning , the roller coaster will again be at its most intense, its greatest moment.

 

Next Sunday at this time, we will be rejoicing.

 

Next Sunday, we will be rejoicing in the fact that all the humiliation experienced this week has turned to joy, all desertion has turned to rewarding and wonderful friendship, all sadness to gladness, and death—horrible, ugly death—will be turned to full, complete and unending joy.

 

Marcus Borg finished that quote we heard earlier in this way:

 

“Which journey are we on? Which procession are we in?”

 

Are we on Pilate’s journey?

 

Are we the crowd, are we the religious leaders who call for Jesus’ death because he doesn’t meet our personal needs?

 

Let us instead join Jesus’ procession, as uncomfortable and frightening and horrible as it might be at times.

 

As we journey through the dark half of our liturgy today, as we trek alongside Jesus during this Holy Week of betrayal, torture and death, let us keep our eyes focused on the Light that is about to dawn in the darkness of our lives.

 

Let us move forward toward that Light.

 

Even though there might be sadness on our faces now, let the joy in our hearts prompt us forward along the path we dread to take.

 

And, next week at this time, when we gather here again, we will do so basking in God’s incredible Light—a Light that triumphs over the darkness of not only Jesus’ death, but ours as well.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, be with us. Be with us as we journey the way of Jesus this week. Be present with us as we follow Jesus to his final meal, to his agony in the garden, to his arrest, to his torture and to his death. But let us follow him beyond the cross too, to that place where you will raise us up and give us unending life and joy. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.