The Sunday of the Passion (Palm Sunday), Year B (2021)

Isaiah 45: 21 – 25 / Psalm 22: 1 – 11 / Philippians 2: 5 – 11 / Mark 15: 1 – 39

This is the homily prepared for St. John’s Church, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker for Sunday, March 28, 2021.

“CHRIST’S PASSION AND OUR COMPASSION”

(Homily text: Mark 15: 1 – 39)

Words can change their meaning over the passage of time. Take, for example, the word “prevent”. Today, it has come to mean to take an action to block an event or occurrence from taking place. But many years ago (centuries, actually), the word meant to “come before”, stemming from the two Latin words that make up the word “prevent” (pre + vent = before + come).

Two other words that are connected to the events of Holy Week that have changed meaning quite a bit are “passion” and “compassion”. In its usual usage today, “passion” means to have a strong desire or affection or feeling for someone or something, as in, “I have a passion for trains.” (Personally speaking, of course.)

But the word “passion” originally meant to “suffer”, as in our Lord Jesus Christ’s Passion, that is, His suffering and death on the cross on Good Friday. So, this Sunday, which is usually known as Palm Sunday, is also known as the Sunday of the Passion, for this day looks forward into the unfolding of events which led to our Lord’s death on Good Friday and His rising to new life on Easter Sunday morning.

Similarly, the word “compassion” has come to mean to have “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune….”[1] But the original meaning of the word “compassion” was to “suffer with” someone.

As we stand at the edge of Holy Week, and prepare ourselves to observe a proper Triduum (the three Holy Days), we would do well to consider the old and the current meanings of the words “passion” and “compassion”.

As we view our Lord’s Passion, we are called to be moved with “compassion” (in the sense of having a deep feeling of sympathy or sorrow for someone who is stricken by misfortune). To gauge our own sense of “compassion” for our Lord’s Passion, consider how we might regard and feel about the lot of the two thieves who were also crucified with Jesus. Do we harbor the same sense of “compassion” for them? Perhaps not. But why would that be so? Aside from the fact that these two were guilty of some wrongdoing and Jesus was not, these two others suffered the same way that Jesus did, for (I think) they were all crucified in the same manner (although I think, personally speaking, that the decision to execute them was a last-minute decision on Pilate’s part, which might have meant that they weren’t scourged before being nailed to their crosses).[2]

Why is it, then, that we regard our Lord’s ordeal so differently? Perhaps, if we think about it, it’s because we deeply love Jesus, and because we see in His willingness to undergo His Passion that He is expressing His love for us and for all humanity.

Our Lord had a “passion” (a strong desire) for His work to be finished on Good Friday and on Easter. He prayed to the Father, asking that the cup of suffering (passion) be taken from Him, but, He said, “nevertheless, your will, not mine, be done”.

Christians down through time have pondered the meaning of our Lord’s Passion, and His atoning death on the cross. One conclusion that has been reached is that our Lord’s Passion (suffering) is an ultimate demonstration of divine love for all humankind.

Out of love for our Lord’s Passion (suffering), we, too, are called to our own “compassion” (a feeling of tenderness, sympathy and sorrow for others who suffer in some way). As God has loved us in the person, the work, the teachings, the suffering, the death and the rising to new life again of our Lord Jesus Christ, so we, too, are called, each one of us, to our own “passion” (suffering) as we ask the Holy Spirit to take away from us all that is ungodly and unbecoming to the nature of Christ. As the Holy Spirit works on us, remolding and remaking us into the full image of Christ, we can act with “compassion” (a feeling of sympathy or sorrow or tenderness toward others who are suffering) toward those who are in any need or trouble. There’s no better way to share the Good News (Gospel) of Jesus Christ with others.

AMEN.      

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[1]   Webster’s new Universal Unabridged Dictionary

[2]   The fact that Jesus died before the two thieves had had their legs broken (so that they couldn’t continue to breathe), points, perhaps, to the idea that they weren’t scourged prior to their journey to Calvary.

Lent 5, Year B (2021)

Jeremiah 31: 31 – 34 / Psalm 51: 1 – 13 / Hebrews 5: 5 – 10 / John 12: 20 – 33

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, March 21, 2021.

 “DYING, THAT NEW LIFE MIGHT COME”

(Homily text: John 3: 14 – 21)

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

Our Lord is speaking, now, in these words, of His coming death and resurrection. From here on in John’s Gospel narrative, the focus will be on the coming events of Good Friday and Easter.

It’s quite common for our Lord to make use of agricultural illustrations to point to a spiritual truth. After all, in the culture of that time and place, many, if not most, people had a very familiar relationship with growing things. Though many of us today have a much less familiar relationship with farming and with growing things in order to eat, we can still experience the truth of Jesus’ words in the created order around us. For example, we live in a very beautiful area here in central Pennsylvania. We are surrounded by hard wood forests. A brief walk on a trail in those woods will confirm the pattern of dying, death and decay, which gives way to and which makes possible new life and new growth.

If Jesus hadn’t gone through the suffering and death that He did, we might regard Him today as having been a spectacular figure in human history. But His very public death leads directly to his rising again on Easter Sunday morning. In the connection of these two events, death and new life, are revealed the truth that He holds the keys to life itself, for it is our Lord who demonstrates that He has power, even over death.

Our walk with God involves dying, death and new life. That walk often begins at our baptisms, by which we are buried with Christ in a death like His, so that we might rise to a new life in a resurrection like His. Here I am drawing on St. Paul’s explanation of the meaning of baptism as we find it in Romans 6: 3 – 9.

That process, begun at baptism, continues throughout our earthly journey. Things within us need to die. They need to die in order that God can cultivate new growth within us.

The first Bishop I served under put this truth in a very succinct way. He said, “Every one of us has a place in our hearts that we’ve made off-limits to God.” But it is in that very off-limits place we’ve created that God’s Holy Spirit would most like to enter into, in order to kill off within us those things that are less than godly, less than holy. You and I hold the keys to that off-limits place. Only we can unlock the door, and allow God to rid us of those things that must die away. The result will inevitably be new and much better growth.

What an apt Lenten message!

AMEN.

Lent 4, Year B (2021) (Laetare Sunday)

Numbers 21: 4 – 9 / Psalm 107: 1 – 3, 17 – 22 / Ephesians 2: 1 – 10 / John 3: 14 – 21

This is the homily prepared for St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker for March 14, 2021.

“A VACCINE FOR THE SOUL”

(Homily texts:  Numbers 21: 4 – 9 & John 3: 14 – 21)

Vaccines are very much in the news, and in our consciousness, these days. We’ve now had three vaccines made available to protect us from COVID-19, and more and more people are receiving them. In a former time (one I can remember vividly) it was the polio vaccine which spared so many people, many of them children, from the ravages of that dread disease. And before the polio vaccine, it was the smallpox vaccine which protected us from that awful illness.

My knowledge of vaccines and how they work is strictly of the lay person’s level of knowledge. That said, I believe I’d be right in saying that a vaccine introduces into a person’s body a mild form of the disease that’s being protected against, so that the body’s own immune system will be primed and prompted to fight the disease off, should the virus make an entry into the system.

In a very real sense, our Old Testament reading from Numbers and our appointed Gospel text, which is part of Jesus’ nighttime conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus, work along the principles of a vaccine.

This statement might need some explanation.

Jesus refers to the incident in the wilderness in which God’s people were being bitten by poisonous snakes (our reading from Numbers). God tells Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, so that when people are bitten, they may look at that bronze serpent and be delivered from the ill effects of the snake’s bite.[1]

The Lord then connects the saving effects of the bronze serpent to His own coming death, saying that, “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14)

In each case, the reality of death becomes the way of deliverance. In each case, it is the waywardness of individual people which brings about the threat of death and destruction. In the wilderness, it was the complaints lodged against God and against Moses. In the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, it was the opposition to the light of God, coming into the darkness of the world.

The bronze serpent and the cross of our Lord offer protection against death, a temporal death in the wilderness and an eternal death in the time of our Lord’s visitation. Those very things that would threaten us – the things that have the power to destroy us - become the barrier between us, our illnesses and our destruction.

A vaccine is useless unless it is received. God’s people in the wilderness had to have faith that the bronze serpent would be the way of deliverance. We, too, must look by faith at the cross of Christ, and realize that it has the power to deliver us from the way of sin and death.  AMEN.

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[1]  This symbol has become associated with the medical profession. Look for it the next time you’re in a doctor’s office.

Lent 3, Year B (2021)

Exodus 20: 1 – 17 / Psalm 19 / I Corinthians 1: 18 – 25 / John 2: 13 – 22

This is the homily prepared for St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker, for Sunday, March 7, 2021.

“GOD’S WAY: STRENGTH-OR- WEAKNESS?”
(Homily texts:  Exodus 20: 1 – 17, I Corinthians 1: 18 – 25 & John 2: 13 – 22)

Does strength or raw power always prevail when it comes to an encounter of one thing and another? Does the strongest person always win in an athletic contest? Does the heaviest object always remain in place when a weaker force acts against it? Does the larger army always win the battle or the war over the smaller and weaker one?

Obviously, the answer to each of these scenarios is “No”: The stronger person doesn’t always win in an athletic contest, for a smaller and weaker person might outwit or might outmaneuver the other one. Likewise, the heavy rock moves when a single person uses an appropriate lever to budge it. And, of course, there are many examples of larger armies having been defeated by a smaller force that might have been better trained, better equipped, better led or better motivated.

It’s a given fact that oftentimes the seemingly weaker or the lesser comes out best.

That’s a reality that, in spiritual terms, St. Paul articulates in our epistle reading this morning. He quotes Isaiah 29:14 when he says to the early Christians in Corinth, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning, I will thwart.” Of course, Paul is talking about God’s wisdom, a sort of wisdom that – by the world’s standards – is foolishness. Paul will go on to say that the message that God’s way of offering salvation to the world is through the death of His only-begotten Son, Jesus, on the cross. Paul says the message of the cross is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles”.

Our three appointed readings all point in one way or another to a simple truth of God: Our walk with God often seems like foolishness, like weakness, like surrender. We’ve just cited an example of it from First Corinthians. The way of God seems to be foolishness, weakness and surrender when we think about the ways in which the everyday world operates.

As an example, our Old Testament reading is from Exodus, chapter twenty. We have before us this morning the Ten Commandments. To the world’s way of thinking, trying to live by those commandments means giving up one’s own freedoms, one’s own ability to choose what to do and what not to do. But to live by those commandments enables us to relate to God properly (for that is the focus of the first four commandments), and they enable us to live with one another in harmony (the focus of the last six commandments). The Ten Commandments then, set boundaries within which freedom, true freedom, can thrive. There is always a certain strength in freedom.

In our appointed Gospel reading from John, chapter two, our Lord Jesus points to an example of weakness overcoming power in His comments made in the Temple in Jerusalem. There, having overturned the tables of the money changers, He is asked for a sign which would indicate His authority for having upset the usual practices that were going on in the Temple. His response is a response of seeming weakness, a weakness speaking truth to power. He says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Of course, His opponents don’t understand the comment. They think He is referring to the destruction of the Temple, which represented God’s presence and God’s power to the people. However, our Lord’s death is what He is referring to, and, in the fullness of time, His death on Good Friday will seem to be weakness and surrender. But His rising on Easter Sunday morning will demonstrate His power, even over death. Our Lord’s seeming weakness overcomes the strength, the power of evil.

There’s a spiritual truth at work here: It is the truth that our walk with God begins with our adoption of a zero-sum beginning of our walk with God. As we adopt this zero-sum attitude, we empty ourselves of any confidence in our own strengths, our own wisdom, our own willfulness. Only then can we truly and fully live in the strength of God’s way.

As I think about this truth, I am prompted to say it’s a perfect message and theme for this Lenten season.

AMEN.