Sermon for Palm Sunday, April 5, 2009
“… he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow ”
WHEN was the last time you came to a full stop at a stop sign? Fearless of the tax man, or out of a desire to keep more, or resentment of government intrusion, have you honestly accounted every penny of income to the IRS this year, and not padded your deductions? Does your right foot ever take you five or ten miles over the speed limit? No trespassing signs mean anything to you? Wash your hands after using the restroom? Brush and floss? Say your prayers morning and night, and keep your pledge current every week?
What do you find hard to obey? And if your obedience strains at small, easy things, how hard a command and painful a path would make you outright rebellious? Not much at all, if you're anything like me.
The Ten Commandments are really quite simple and very easy, actually. Love only God, not things, and use His Name only with respect, keeping a day a week for Him alone. Do the right thing for your parents, murder no one, keep your heart and body within the bonds of marriage, never take what's not yours, don't lie against anyone else, and be happy with your own stuff. Why is that so hard to keep? Yet mankind has strained to obey even these ten simple commands. In this church, we've lost a great many adult confirmation students right when we get to discussing the Ten Commandments, because we've tripped across their favorite misbehavior and the excuses they tell themselves for keeping at it.
The world is full of excuses to sin. The first excuse ever was that God doesn't know what He's talking about, and He's probably keeping something good away from you. Our first parents fell for that and we've all been falling ever since. Our eyes, our hearts, our minds seem to crave the forbidden fruits of this earth like kids craving ice cream when they pass Shubert's. But the things we crave, if we look at most of them in the light of reason and truth, are all a horrible fraud, truly that pig in lipstick , a hundred stomach aches, dust and ashes in our mouths and the ruination of everything we were truly in love with. And if we don't actually fall into the trap, so often we cruise by it and look back at it with longing and regret, our hearts trapped anyway, our minds devaluing the good that we've been given.
Obedience is hard for human beings. The word Obey sounds like eating dirt, like wearing a too-tight shirt with buttoned sleeves three inches too short. Obedience sounds like a choke chain collar on a dog and barked-out orders for us to heel, a noisome task, weeding the backyard on hands and knees, a stack of homework a mile high. Sometimes it is unwelcome chores, and what of that? Does it take obedience to have to eat dinner when it's your favorite food? No, but it does take obedience when you have to remember to keep your elbows off the table, to wait for the family to say grace, to politely ask for something to be passed your way . And the result? A pleasant meal and a full tummy. Or good grades, knowledge you didn't possess before, a lovely garden, a clean house and a happy family. Obedience, when it's rightly required, leads to goodness and contentment. Why do we fight it so?
Jesus is God's own eternal Son who obeyed His Father. He has always obeyed the Father in all things, but for an eternity without any beginning, I'm sure the requirements were forever pleasant. “Make light.” “Yes, Father. Let there be light.” But something went wrong in the creation, not by design, but because of one gift to one creature, its free will , the chance that it might choose to love and obey God when it had the choice to do so, or not to do so. One little test was placed in its path, and – due in part to the devious insinuations of a fallen angel – it failed the test and chose wrong. It chose to do what God had clearly proscribed.
Now God the Father asked the Son to do a really terrible thing. This was new . Now I imagine it was something in the order of this: “Submit to being a part of our creation, being born as one of these frail beings, scarcely recognizable for Who you are among them and, without showing them a fraction of your power or glory, win the hearts of a few who will carry on the legacy when surely the rest will hate you enough to torture and to kill you. It's imperative that you be killed by both the government and the priests, representing all of them. You must then go among the dead and enlist whomever you can, and finally burst back to life to secretly show yourself to the faithful few and finally come home to me. You will be human forever, you understand, but that will be good for them. It's going to hurt very badly, I'm afraid. Will you do it?”
The writer of Hebrews puts it thus: “…in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.” Heb 5:5-9 The Son was perfect, all God, eternal and most capable, all knowing. Yet somehow he learned something by doing what no one would ever want to do: volunteer to stoop to our level, be born in a barn, live in poverty, see sin everywhere and not participate in it, yet love creatures infinitely below Himself enough to be their prisoner, accused and lied against, and condemned to die naked, nailed to a cross. What a Christ!
What does obedience cost us ? We think of the word freedom , that obedience costs us the freedom to do what we want . Is it really that? The prayer says that serving God is perfect freedom . Which one is true? What did Jesus Christ say? “If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter; the Spirit of truth shall be in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” John 14:15-23 If we love Him, we show it by doing what He said. If we don't do what He said, it's because we don't love God, and to love God is the chiefest and essential commandment. Do we really have a decision to make here? Do we understand what is at stake? Are we really happy to disobey, to choose what we call freedom , which is no more than a dog that laps up its own vomit because it doesn't think what it's doing. Freedom? Sin stinks, and we stink with it when we follow the siren song of this dying world.
I don't think I've ever seen so clearly that the world is dying as I do now. Like some vain movie starlet who has certainly lost her youthful glamour, this world powders its nose, dyes and curls its hair, paints its face and tries to make provocative clothing actually look alluring, while it should be obvious to anyone she's far over the hill and couldn't get a whistle out of a blind sailor. She's trying too hard. Isn't it apparent to all yet? No, not apparent to very many it would seem, for they keep watching the world on their screens, waiting to be entertained, waiting for something to enjoy, anything, it's sure to happen, keep flipping channels, keep searching, it's going to be good…
Our Lord's abusive trials and tortures, more familiar to us after the movie The Passion , rank at the very top of the world's greatest sins. We hiss at Judas staggering off after throwing the 30 coins on the floor of the priests' hall, going off to hang himself; but might we hiss in another direction entirely? Who cried out , “Crucify Him!” but we ourselves. Each time we pick up something we know to be dirty; every time we look the wrong way; that extra muffin, the two extra drinks, the shrug instead of the prayer, the dismissive word at another's need, a cruel denial, a selfish thought, a cherished fantasy, a willful act of supremacy over any other being. Crucify Him! You should join that chorus just once and feel the thrill of what you too often regard as Freedom. Crucify Him, cries every one of our sins.
He “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Freedom is using what you have to make others free . Freedom is saying Yes to a God you can't see when it isn't convenient, but you know it's the right thing. Freedom is laying your life down because He laid His down for you. Freedom is not free . It cost someone dearly. Before He obeyed His Father, and suffered unimaginable pain for us, we were slaves to sin and death and there would never be any way out of it. Now we are subject to a whole new paradigm, another question entirely: will I believe Jesus and will I love Him? “If a man loves me, he will keep my sayings.” Obedience is a loving response to the Savior of my soul. Am I grateful, or am I the child in the grocery screaming my will against my mother for passing the candy aisle and not giving me what I want. What I need is a nap, and first I may need a spanking. Am I grateful for what Christ did for me, and do I fear the alternative enough? None of us do. We should consider the cost. We should consider what it cost Him .
“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” When I confess that Jesus is my Lord and Savior, as I did at my Baptism, at my Confirmation, at my Ordination, and every time I recite the Creed: let me remember that Lord means the giver of life-giving commands . Choose life and live, happily obeying a God who obediently died for us.
PFH+