A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, March 24, 2013.
“GOD’S
GREAT PLAN ENTERS HUMAN HISTORY”
Here we stand at the leading edge of
Holy Week.
The events of this week are,
most likely, etched into our memories so well that we could recite the basic
outline of what happened on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday
without difficulty.
As we look into the week in front of
us, giving thanks for the gift of the Holy Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, on
Maundy Thursday, and as we look with grief at the miscarriage of justice that
took place on Good Friday, resulting in the Lord’s agonizing death on the
Cross, and as we wait with expectation for the empty tomb’s meaning and impact
to dawn on our consciousness once again, may we consider the trajectory of this
week’s events from the perspective of the human drama that was involved, and
from the perspective of God’s great and powerful plan? For the human drama and the divine plan meet
on Good Friday, and are carried to their resolution on Easter Sunday.
So, let’s consider, first of all,
the human drama, the human events, which lead us to the hill of Calvary:
- It seems clear, both from a reading of the Scriptures and from secular historical sources such as the first century historian Josephus, that life in the Holy Land in the first century was a precarious and often violent existence. (The recent miniseries “The Bible”, shown on the History Channel, brings out this reality quite well.) People living in that land were subject to the whims of those in power: The puppet king, Herod, or the Roman governors (such as Pontius Pilate), could alter or even destroy the livelihoods and even the lives of many, simply by telling their troops to carry out their wishes.
- Given these realities, especially the reality of the Roman occupation, it wasn’t surprising that the Jewish people hated their occupiers, and tried, more than once, to cast off the yoke of Roman slavery. Consequently, the Romans viewed with suspicion and alarm any mass gathering of people, fearing that such a critical mass of people could turn into an unmanageable mob. The usual response, rooted in such fears, was a violent and heavy-handed treatment of anyone who dared to challenge Roman rule.
- The Romans tolerated the Jewish religion, even if they didn’t understand it. They allowed a puppet king, Herod, to rule, and they allowed Jews to manage their own religious affairs, through the priestly caste that operated the temple, and through the governing council called the Sanhedrin. These ruling entities viewed threats to their position and authority with alarm, much as the Romans did. One reason for this is that, in the Scriptures and elsewhere, the image that has been handed down to us is one in which there were a goodly number threats to the status quo of power in the form of itinerant preachers, would-be prophets and even leaders of the revolutionary sect called the Zealots (who wanted to overthrow Roman rule by force) who wandered the countryside, and sometimes made their way to Jerusalem.
- The great festivals (such as Passover) tended to attract large crowds, for the expectation was, in those days, that anyone who was able to travel to Jerusalem for these observances was expected to attend.
- And so the basic ingredients of the showdown that took place between Jesus, the Sanhedrin and the Chief Priests, and the Romans are in place: The Passover festival meant that Jerusalem would be full of pilgrims, and the Jewish and the Roman authorities would be on edge. Jesus then makes His triumphal entry into the Holy City, to the cries of a large crown who hail Him as “the Son of David”. Once inside the Temple, Jesus overturns the tables of the moneychangers, provoking a confrontation with the Temple authorities.
- Sadly, the trajectory from this point forward is predictable enough: A challenger appears from outside the Jewish establishment, provoking a direct challenge to the position and power of that establishment. Once threatened, that establishment is able to seek the cooperation of the Roman governor to eliminate the threat. Sadly, what happened on Good Friday to our Lord probably wasn’t all that uncommon an occurrence.
That Jesus lived on the Cross for about six hours is, by contemporary accounts, a short time for a victim of crucifixion to be alive under those conditions. Most victims lived a matter of days before expiring. (Perhaps – and this is only my own personal theory – the fact that Jesus had been scourged before being crucified shortened the time before death. Though the Scriptures do not tell us so, I suspect that the two thieves were not scourged, and that may be because Pilate decided to round up these two and send them out with Jesus, so as not to make it appear that he was singling Jesus out.)
And so, from a human perspective,
the events of Good Friday are a depiction of the political and social realities
of life under Roman occupation 2,000 years ago.
But what makes the difference for us
as we remember these horrible events, given that they were typical occurrences
of the time?
The difference is that God’s great
plan is at work. It is a plan we see
most clearly from the perspective of Easter Sunday.
For when the disciples discover the
empty tomb, and when they encounter the risen Lord, whose hands and feet still
bear the marks of the nails, the risen Lord who asks them for something to eat,
the risen Lord who encourages them to touch Him and to see that He has flesh
and blood, and is not a ghost, that same risen Lord who now has conquered the
last and great enemy, which is death, then those first disciples and we, the
Lord’s contemporary disciples, see that God has done battle with the powers of
evil, engaging those powers on their own turf.
The victory has been total and complete.
It is this perspective that impels
us to observe the events of this week, sitting with the Lord at His Last
Supper, standing beneath the Cross on Good Friday, waiting in the darkness of
Easter night as we keep vigil beside the tomb, and as we greet with joy the
evidence that the Lord, indeed, is risen from the dead.
So, come, walk with the Lord this
week, as we make our way forward, knowing that thankfulness will be our
companion on Maundy Thursday, that sorrow will be our lot on Good Friday, and
that unspeakable joy will greet us on Easter Sunday morning.
Thanks be to God!
AMEN.
