Luke 19: 29–40; Isaiah 45: 21–25; Psalm 22: 1–11; Philippians
2: 5–11; Luke 22: 39 – 23: 56
This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon,
Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, April 14, 2019.
“A BATTLE, WAGED ON THREE LEVELS”
(Homily text: Luke
22: 39 – 23: 56)
Let’s
look at the very familiar events of the week which lies before us, Holy Week,
from the perspective of the struggle, the battle that is waged between Jesus
and the ruling powers of the days of His earthly ministry, the battle against
unjust structures in society, and the battle between God and the powers of
evil.
Before
we examine these three different levels of struggle, we would do well to
refresh our memories about the conditions that pertained to God’s people,
living under the corrupt and self-serving leadership of their own leaders, and
the brutal occupation of the Holy Land by the Romans.
It
may be difficult for us Americans, who live in a free and democratic country
whose founding principles, enshrined in the Constitution, guarantee us certain
rights that are articulated in the Bill of Rights, to imagine living in the
conditions that Jesus encountered during His earthly ministry. But in order to
understand more fully just what life was like back then, we must set aside the
mantle of goodness that comes with living in a country where we take certain
rights and freedoms for granted. We must try to insert ourselves into the
conditions that were in place back then….it would be helpful for us to grasp
those conditions if we would select a country that, today, is ruled by a
corrupt and self-serving dictator or ruling class. That’s probably a good
example, if we want to understand what was going on back then.
Let’s
step back in time, then, to that time, nearly 2,000 years ago now.
In
short, we can conclude that life was short in those days, and it was brutal and
uncertain. Many lived only into their thirties or maybe their forties, very
short lifetimes by contemporary standards. God’s people, the Jews, were led by
the Temple priests, the Pharisees and the Scribes, some of whom made up the
ruling council, known as the Sanhedrin. Beyond this level of governance, there
were the occupying Romans, who had entered the Holy Land a few decades before
Jesus’ birth. The Romans appointed puppet kings (the Herodian family was set up
in this role) and Governors (Pontius Pilate was Governor of Judea from the
years 26–36 AD). Taxation under Roman rule was very high (one estimate I read
some years ago put the figure at about 2/3 of people’s income), and the Roman
army was ready to deal with any challenges to Roman rule, often employing
brutal means to suppress any uprising.
This
then, is probably a fairly accurate picture of life when Jesus walked the
earth.
Jesus’
entry into Jerusalem, and the subsequent events of Holy Week and Easter,
constitute a battle, waged on three different levels. In some ways, what
unfolded during Holy Week wasn’t all that much out-of-the-ordinary, but some of
it was extraordinary, cosmic in its spiritual and eternal implications. We
examine, then, this struggle from three different aspects:
The
human level: When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of
a donkey on Palm Sunday, He was joining a large crowd of people who were coming
into the Holy City for the great festival of Passover. It’s not beyond
possibility that others also came into the city, hailed by their own local
townspeople as some sort of a heroic figure. Nor is it unusual that some who
had come to the city came in order to challenge the powers that existed back
then, for there were many such challenges. The Gospels and the early chapters
of the Book of Acts chronicle some of these uprisings for us. One such account
also records Pilate’s brutality in dealing with these conquered people, the
Jews. (See Luke 13: 1.) It was probably common knowledge that the Sanhedrin and
the Roman Governor could manage to work together to put down any challenges to
their rule, if the circumstances dictated. In short, that’s the story of Jesus’
arrest, suffering and death. The Sanhedrin’s members and the Roman Governors
had little regard for one another, barring any challenges to their place in the
scheme of things, but when threats arose, they became allies who worked
together efficiently and swiftly.
Predicting
what would happen in such cases would be an easy task: Challengers would be dealt with harshly.
Perhaps challengers would be subjected to scourging, bad enough in and of
itself, because many victims didn’t survive the experience. And if they did,
they were probably permanently disfigured and unable to work afterward. But in
more severe cases, crucifixion was the solution. Nailing people to crosses was
the Roman way of applying state-sponsored terrorism. The sign which was hung
over the victim’s head announced to all who saw it the reason for the slow and
agonizing death that awaited the helpless person who had the misfortune to find
himself there. In short, the message was, “Do this, and we have a place for
you.”
Jesus,
being fully human, must have recoiled in horror at the possibility that He
would experience such harsh treatment. No wonder that He asked the Father to
allow the cup (of suffering) to pass from Him when he was praying in the Garden
of Gethsemane on the night in which He was betrayed.
The
battle against unjust structures in society: This is the next level of struggle, one that
others within the Jewish community also shared, including the Zealots, who
advocated overthrowing Roman rule by using force, if necessary. (The Jewish-Roman
War, which lasted from 66–70 AD, was an attempt to drive the Romans out of the
Holy Land.)
But
the Romans weren’t the only ones who valued their place in the way of things.
The Temple priests were corrupt, using their monopoly over the affairs of the
Temple to enrich themselves. This point requires some explanation: Since Roman coinage bore the image of the emperor,
it couldn’t be used in the inner precincts of the Temple (because to have an
image violated one of the precepts of the Ten Commandments), So in the outer
areas of the Temple, money changers set up their businesses to convert Roman
coinage into Temple currency. Guess who controlled the rate of exchange, and
who enriched themselves in the process: The priests, that’s who. Jesus’
cleansing of the Temple makes sense, given this background, for He said that
they had turned God’s house into a “den of thieves”.
Jesus’
trial before the Sanhedrin also marks a struggle against the corrupt and
self-serving ruling class. Notice that the Chief Priests and the elders are
unwilling to go talk to Pilate in person, because to do so would have made them
ritually unclean and unable to observe the Passover (since Jews were to have no
dealings with Gentiles). Yet they openly talk of committing murder, but they make
sure that the Romans will be to blame for the act.
The
cosmic struggle: The Easter Sunday morning event puts a
different focus on the events of Holy Week. For in raising Jesus from the dead,
God declares victory over the powers of death and evil. We can look at the
resurrection of our Lord as a sort-of down payment on our own victory over
death.
In
fact, we could see every event in the Lord’s earthly ministry as an act that
pushes back the forces of evil. Every victory, whether it be in His teaching,
in His healing, or in His treatment of least and the lost, marks an advance in
the mission to reclaim territory from the evil one.
What
does all this mean to you and me, Christians living in the twenty-first
century?
Jesus
said, “If anyone would follow me, let them take up their cross and follow me.”
(Mark 8: 34) In order to follow the Lord, we must use Him as our example. We
must be willing to face difficult choices and difficult, perhaps even
threatening encounters as we go about proclaiming the Good News (Gospel) by
what we do and by what we say. We must be willing to confront unjust structures
in society, for they still exist. And we must recognize that Jesus’
resurrection marks a new chapter in human history and in our own lives, for we
Christians are a resurrection people. We believe in new life. We believe that
no one is beyond God’s ability to redeem and to reclaim for Himself.
Our lives
as Christians is a recurring walk through Holy Week, facing the tough stuff of
life, confronting those things that diminish people’s freedom and self-worth,
claiming the new beginning that is to be found through faith in Jesus Christ
alone.
AMEN.
