enjoyLENT: The Joy of the Cross

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April 9, 2017 - Palm/Passion Sunday

enjoyLENT: The Joy of the Cross

John 19:28-30

28 After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” 29 A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Hebrews 12:1-3, 12-13

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

3 Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.

12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

Sermon: “enjoyLENT: The Joy of the Cross”

When I was a child, I asked my mom if I could join the Brownies. I didn’t care about badges or meetings…I honestly thought you just got to eat brownies together every week. (Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed.)

My delight in sweet treats has been a long time in the making (or baking). This is probably why I’ve become slightly obsessed with the Great British Baking Show, where amateur bakers with jolly accents make all sorts of delectable creations, from a tent in the middle of the English countryside. The mixers get going, the ovens get warming, and I get hungry. My baking fondness is not just because of my incurable sweet tooth, though.

I love baking because it’s one of the few things in life where the results are clear. You put ingredients together with as much precision as you can muster, and if you’re lucky, you might just have something edible to show for it. They are transformed into a deliciously new creation, and you feel like you’ve really accomplished something, start to finish (or at least tried to). There is joy in seeing something through to the end.

Maybe this is what the writer of Hebrews was trying to convey when they wrote about Jesus enduring the cross, and used, of all words, “joy” to describe his passion. It doesn’t make sense to talk about the horror Jesus experienced on the cross as joy. What could be joyful about religious and political power colluding to crucify the very son of God?

Perhaps we find a clue in the final words the author of the gospel of John tells us Jesus said, “It is finished.” Jesus took a last mouthful of wine, letting his final experience with humanity be compassion and not hatred, and said those words with his final breath: It. Is. Finished. Such joy those words hold! He saw it through to the very end.

Because he wasn’t just saying this life was finished – no, so many other “it’s” were also finished on the cross:

Sin was finished. Though it still clings to us closely, we are never powerless against it. Jesus made it possible for us to choose selflessness instead.

Death was finished. Though we will all die, that is never the end of our story.

Hatred was finished. Though the powerful will crucify those who dare to speak out for the least and the lost, hatred will never have the final word. Jesus punctuated that sentence with love, forever.

Violence was finished. Though the story of Cain and Abel gets replayed in myriad ways again and again, Jesus’ nonviolent endurance of the cross mocked violence itself, and showed there is always another path to take.

In that moment, it was all finished: sin, death, hatred, and violence.

Once again, Frederick Buechner names this moment better than any other, writing:

According to John, the last words Jesus spoke from the cross were, "It is finished." Whether he meant "finished" as brought to an end, in the sense of finality, or "finished" as brought to completion, in the sense of fulfillment, nobody knows. Maybe he meant both.

What was brought to an end was of course nothing less than his life. The Gospels make no bones about that. He died as dead as any person. All the days of his life led him to this day, and beyond this day there would be no other days, and he knew it. It was finished now, he said. He was finished. He had come to the last of all his moments, and because he was conscious still, alive to his death, maybe as they say the dying do, he caught one final glimpse of the life he had all but finished living.

Who knows what he glimpsed as that life passed before him. Maybe here and there a fragment preserved for no good reason like old snapshots in a desk drawer: the play of sunlight on a wall, a half-remembered face, something somebody said. A growing sense perhaps of destiny: the holy man in the river, a gift for prayer, a gift for moving simple hearts. One hopes he remembered good times, although the Gospels record few: how he once fell asleep in a boat as a storm was coming up, and how he went to a wedding where water was the least of what was turned into wine.

Then the failures of the last days, when only a handful gathered to watch him enter the city on the foal of an ass, and those very likely for the wrong reasons. The terror that he himself had known for a few moments in the garden, and that finally drove even the handful away. Shalom then, the God in him moving his swollen lips to forgive them all, to forgive maybe even God. Finished.

It is finished. But, are we finished with sin, hatred, death, and violence? Do we respond to the suffering of another by lifting a sponge of wine to a parched mouth, or do we mock along with the cynical crowd?

This week, as you know, I’ve spent a lot of time with Juanita. After her accident, that first night, she had to keep very still, and couldn’t have much water because she might have needed surgery. All she could have was a little spongeful at a time, loving put to her lips by her son, Eric. It was only a small thing: that little sponge filled with cold water.

But it was everything to her. And all the pain, all the fear, all the anxiety, was relieved just for a moment, with that little act of human compassion.  She closed her eyes in bliss, tasting each precious drop. And slowly, but surely, she has begun to heal.

Sometimes it seems like sin, hatred, death, and violence are not finished. Sometimes it seems like Jesus’ death on the cross was so very long ago, and is so very removed from our lives. It can feel like perhaps it mattered then, long before we were even a thought in our parents’ minds, and perhaps it will matter in the future, when we see him, but now? Does the cross matter right now, we wonder?

But then, a little sponge of water meets weary lips, and we’re right there with Jesus again: remembering that each time we resist violence with kindness, each time we choose selflessness over sin, each time we bring life to another human being, each time we channel all our energy into loving, it is finished.

Sin, hatred, death, and violence: finished, and we don’t have to eat that bitter, burned bread any longer.

Because Jesus did that for us: showed us all that the final taste at the cross, and in any place of suffering, would never be violence, and would forever be compassion. How sweet was that sour wine!

What better news could there be? What more reason for joy do we need? It is finished. Thanks be to God! Amen.