Have you ever had a week to forget? One of those seven day spans filled with unpleasant things and disappointing news… One of those weeks when the job interview that you thought went well does not lead to the job, when the medical bill you incurred turns out to be much higher than expected and not covered by insurance nearly as much as assumed, when you pick up a traffic ticket, and the world just seems to be aligned against you… Yes, of course most of us have had weeks like that and we might have said to ourselves, “This was really a week to forget!”
And you know what: the good news is, some of those weeks we will actually succeed in forgetting! I think I am not the only person who has a natural knack for erasing bad memories in favor of more pleasant ones over time. I haven’t checked with a psychologist whether that’s a good or a bad thing, but I’m pretty sure it’s a common thing. Most human beings tick that way and maybe it’s our psyche’s way of keeping us sane. Over time we forget many unpleasant things. Thank God!
As we all know, Jesus had a pretty bad week once. His friends abandon him, the people on Jerusalem’s streets turn sour on him. One of his disciples accepts a bribe and becomes a traitor. He ends up on a cross. To say it was a bad week would be a euphemism. But, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, according to all the Christian witnesses of the time, Holy Week was not a week to forget, but one to remember. They all devote a large part of their gospels to the last week in Jesus’ life, begging us not to forget. And while people are people and still tend to circumvent Lent and Holy Week and Good Friday, you know, the unpleasant parts, the gospel writers give about five times as much space to the description of Jesus’ last week, compared with the short Easter narratives. They want this to be a week to remember!
There are several lessons to be learned in the story of the Passion. The first lesson practically jumps out at us in Luke 19, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem: beware of populism!
Well what is populism? It is when someone has a very keen instinct for what people want to hear and then promises them the exact things they so long for, whether it’s realistic or not. It’s when people over-expect what one popular person can do. Populist movements often feed slogans to people and shy away from the complexities of life. They simplify things to the point of over-simplification. So what has the Palm Sunday gospel, the lesson we heard at the very beginning, have to do with populism? A lot! The Messianic hopes of Jews in the first century followed populist patterns. So, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the unrealistic expectations of thousands of people longing to be freed from Roman rule and oppression greeted him. Jesus rode into town on a donkey, as if to tell them: “I am not who you think I am.” At the end of that week, the mood of the people turned against him and when Pilate gave them a choice, they selected a violent criminal to be freed rather than Jesus. Populist movements often favor strong men.
This is also a week to remember that not everything in life is what it appears to be. When we experience challenges and hardships, is there perhaps a narrative beyond that, a reason and purpose that’s not immediately plausible to us? Is there perhaps a guiding hand in all of it? Is there a God guiding you in those times? Please know, this is not a rhetorical question, it is a question. It would be fairly easy for me to stand here as a pastor and say, “Whatever happens to you, there is always a reason and a purpose,” and part of me wants to tell you that. Part of me is egging on the preacher, “Say it, say it!” But the other part of me is caught up, just like the disciples, in the obvious, in the way things appear. And let’s face it, in this story everything appears to be pretty bad: Jesus is going to suffer and die. It’s going to be ugly. It’s going to be painful. How can that be good news?
During Holy Week God whispers to us: “Things are not always what they appear to be.” Yes, Jesus is dying, but wait, there is more to it. It may be a little bit easier for us to accept this truth when looked at from a different angle. We already know that not everything is what it appears to be, right? For instance, people tend to use social media to show off their happy experiences, smiling faces, beautiful scenery and so on. It’s easy to put up a nice front through pictures and short comments, but we know things are not always what they appear to be.
A few years ago I saw the movie “Revolutionary Road.” It was about a successful middle class couple in 1950’s suburban America. They lived in a nice house on Revolutionary Road. The husband had a good job, his wife was beautiful. Things seemed great according to the cultural expectations of the era. And underneath the veneer, she was suffering from depression and a terrible lack of purpose.
Now let me change the angle again. While it is true that not everything is as good as it appears to be in people’s lives, the opposite can be true as well. In the story of the Passion God is saying: not all bad things are as bad as they appear. Sometimes bad things happen and rather than marking the end of a story, they usher in a beginning, if only we can see it. Granted, when you’re in it, it’s so much harder to see. Trust me, I am not claiming to hear the angels whisper when things go south, but let us take the Word by its word. Let us say that God can turn any curse into a blessing, because that’s what the story of the cross is all about: a belief that God is in it with us even when it appears that God is gone…
He’s all in with us. He’s all in with you.
Amen.