The Tuesday of Holy Week - doing the middle bit

Our youth group in Harpenden many years ago had a prayer book into which we took turns to write a prayer in. I have one of those books and one of the entries is a poem by Steve Turner:  

Christmas is really 
for the children. 
Especially for children 
who like animals, stables, 
stars and babies wrapped 
in swaddling clothes. 
Then there are wise men, 
kings in fine robes, 
humble shepherds and a 
hint of rich perfume. 

Easter is not really 
for the children 
unless accompanied by 
a cream filled egg. 
It has whips, blood, nails, 
a spear and allegations 
of body snatching. 
It involves politics, God 
and the sins of the world. 
It is not good for people 
of a nervous disposition. 
They would do better to 
think on rabbits, chickens 
and the first snowdrop 
of spring. 

Or they'd do better to 
wait for a re-run of 
Christmas without asking 
too many questions about 
what Jesus did when he grew up 
or whether there's any connection.

I used a quote from a sermon I read the other day in a blog post. The preacher talked of the importance of entering into the whole of the passion story this week, not just the nice bits. Otherwise, he said, we will just have a filleted version without the guts and innards. 

We don’t like to partake of things which we don’t like or don’t want in our life. But maybe having faced them, we realise they are for our good. Healthy even! My wife has brought much into my life since we met five years ago. My diet was red meat, carbs and red wine. We’ve introduced vegetables! So I would say I’m not eating those. And now I’m throwing spinach and kale into my cooking very happily. They are good for me, nasty on their own but okay in the middle of a stew. 

What’s the middle of this story many leave out this week? Well, it’s a bit x rated. It’s a bit bloody. There’s no fluffy bunnies in it. It’s not nice. But it’s necessary to really understand the vastness of divine love for us.

The middle of this story is about Jesus entering the depths of human experience. The middle of this story is about confrontation, a kangaroo court, the innocent stitched up, friends running away, betrayal, darkness, abandonment and slow, painful death. 
The middle of this story is consistent with all that Jesus has shown us before. He entered our world in poverty, he was a child refugee, a befriender of outcasts, as Samuel Crossman puts in words written for his week “love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.” We call Jesus God incarnate at Christmas, well he is still that in Holy Week. He is powerfully one of us. There is no experience in life he has not already gone through, some of which push human endurance to the limit. To not have the guts and innards or the kale in the stew is to miss the overwhelming transcendence of God who enters his world, as complicated today as it was over two thousand years ago and he redeems it by entering it and living it and conquering it. 

I want to offer you three quotes that speak to me of the authentic church that chooses to follow through the suffering of this week. 

The first is from Henri Nouwen. He looks at Psalm 30. 

If we are people of a incarnate, suffering, crucified Christ, then we need to be involved in every aspect of life, in people’s joy and sorrow, standing alongside them in mourning and in dancing. A church that knows nothing about contemporary life nor cares about it will soon die.

Then Rowan Williams in his little book of reflections on the pandemic suggests identifying with this sort of Jesus will invite us to see we are a community of shared fragility. We need to be honest and compassionate with each other, recognising our need of each other, he says in this year just past we may have seen our need for our neighbour to be safe and well, instead of falling back on our fearful attempts to be safe at our neighbour’s expense. If Jesus dies for everyone, doesn’t that call us to better inclusivity? 

For me, the whole point of the bit between Palm Sunday and Easter morning is that Jesus gets where I’m at. No matter how awful my day is or my current situation is, he stands by me in it. He suffers with me, leaving me an example that I should follow in his steps. So here’s a final quote. Barbara Brown Taylor is my favourite living theologian. She’s an American episcopal priest. She’s written many books which are just so down to earth and honest. I once flew for a day out from Gatwick to Edinburgh to hear her lecture! Here’s her take on the middle bit from her book

 “God in Pain: the mystery of suffering.”

“ Jesus is the face of God who is encountered in everyday life, wherever the brokenness of the world can no longer be ignored. He is the incomprehensible love of God come to live among the poor and despicable, the Lord who cannot show them the human side of his divinity without showing them also the divine side of their own humanity. He is the wounded healer who turns the expectations of the world upside down, making glory out of humiliation, making victory out of defeat, making life out of death.”

What’s the middle bit? Essential! Not easy, tempting to avoid, but here is what it’s all about. As I said years ago to a group of ladies who bunked off my Good Friday service to go on a coach jolly to Blackpool, and I was rather miffed, “he has to rise from something!” And you can’t do part two without having done part 1. We worship because of this Holy Week a crucified and risen Saviour. We follow him into the city which will attempt to destroy him. We watch him being tried. We look on helplessly as others shout for his crucifixion. We weep with him as he is in agony in a garden. We hide our eyes as he carries his cross to the place of death and as he falls. We stand at the foot of the cross and hear him speak of forgiveness. We are there when he breathes his last. We are glad he has a friend who is prepared to have his body laid in his tomb. And then we wait...

This week remember there is no place God will not go to be with us.  Nothing separates us from the love of God in Jesus….not insults, not betrayal, not suffering, and as we will see at Easter – not even death itself.  

Almighty God,

whose most dear Son went not up to joy

but first he suffered pain,

and entered not into glory before he was crucified:

mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,

may find it to be the way of life and peace;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen