Grace to Accept Tragedy: Job 1: 20-22; John 12: 1-19
[SLIDE 1] If you follow me on social media, you’ll see the grand tragedy of my Thursday. As I sat in my office with lunch spread before me, I meditated on how Jesus turned the water into wine. [SLIDE 2A-B] In front of me was a salad. And no matter how hard I prayed, the same Jesus who turned water into wine would not turn that salad into a bacon cheeseburger and fries. And for a few moments, my faith was truly tested in this tragedy of sad lunching. Now, obviously this is a joke, but in many ways, Palm Sunday is a full-scale tragedy.
[SLIDE 3] The story of Palm Sunday reminds me of reading Greek Tragedies in Freshman English class. They explore human suffering, the consequences of fate, and the worst results of humanity’s free will. Palm Sunday presents a celebration—light-hearted, fun, and exciting. But the underlying truth is that betrayal, abandonment, injustice, hatred and malice, deceit, suffering, and even murder lurk in the shadows of this celebration. Many texts call this the Triumphant Entry. The reality is that it is a tragedy. But it’s a tragedy that leads to triumph. And at times we must have the grace to accept and live out a tragedy in life.
[SLIDE 4] Author and blogger Sarah Christmyer writes about the meaning of Palm Sunday, “To rephrase the old saying, Palm Sunday comes in like a palm branch, out like a cross.” It begins with a betrayal. In the Gospel of Luke, we are told that Judas goes to the chief priests and temple guard to betray Jesus. In Luke it is because Satan enters him. In Matthew it’s out of his greed and disgust at the breaking of the jar of perfume by Mary. In John, there is no explanation. Judas simply slips away like some shadowy figure caught up in wrongdoing. The effect is no different. Jesus experiences the betrayal of one of his closest, a disciple.
Jesus also endures the misunderstanding crowd. On Palm Sunday he hears shouts and cheers hailing him as blessed and the King of the Jews. This had political and spiritual implications. It’s a blurry line whether they thought he was the return of a king like King David or the Savior of Israel. While they understood the wait for the Messiah, what they desperately wanted was a political powerhouse to overthrow Rome. That clearly was not Jesus, and just a short time later, they cry out for his crucifixion. On top of betrayal from Judas, Jesus experiences the cruelty from these people.
It’s proof that the crowd utterly misunderstood who Jesus was. They didn’t make a commitment. They didn’t come in faith. They didn’t listen to his teaching as a spiritual wisdom. They didn’t want the holy. They wanted the political power. Blessed is the KING, not savior, not messiah, but the King of Israel. [SLIDE 5] We even read in our Hebrew Lesson of Job, who encountered tragedy. Like Jesus it only took moments for the happiness and celebration to be swept away in tragedy. The only one left in his family was his wife, who was far more of a curse than a blessing.
[SLIDE 6] We often feel the same. Life seems to bring one tragedy after another. We face a friend or family member who is mad about something, and we don’t even know why. We can feel the pang of betrayal from loved ones or even our own bodies. We can feel misunderstood. We can experience loss. In so many ways, we face minor and colossal tragedies in our own lives that wound us, challenge us, and test our faith in ways we don’t want or expect.
I counseled with a friend many years ago who declared that all of her life seemed to be going from one tragedy to another. It’s a harsh test of our faith when we so desperately want the miracle to come, but it doesn’t happen. We can often identify with Jesus in the garden, fervently praying that this cup would pass from him. Yet he knew that he had to walk the difficult path, or the lonesome valley, as the spiritual says.
[SLIDE 7] But at times there is a glimpse of a light of hope. Mary, in our lesson, anoints Jesus with the essence of nard in an act of devotion. Now, often, nard was used for burial purposes. It would have been saved to anoint Jesus in his burial. Yet here, Mary pours out the whole jar, filling the entire place with the scent of the expensive perfume. As a pastor friend of mine noted, perhaps in all the time spent learning at the feet of Jesus, Mary knew and understood. There would be no burial perfume needed, for Jesus would not stay in the tomb. Her devotion here wasn’t just anointing Jesus with the expensive perfume, it was in her listening, her understanding, and her discipleship in believing what Jesus had said to her.
[SLIDE 8] The difference in the story of Jesus and old school Greek and Shakespearian tragedies is that when the tragedy hits, they just end. But Jesus continues to write the story into a finale of hope. He endures the betrayal, abandonment, suffering, injustice, all of it. Palm Sunday foreshadows a tremendous amount of suffering Jesus must undergo. But none of it is tragic, all of it is redemptive.
One of the things we do most as humans is look for some kind of meaning to the struggles and tragedies we go through. I’ve heard people say, “Don’t waste your trials,” or they talk about lessons learned in life’s tough times. After years of pastoring, I’ve concluded that some trials may contain a lesson. But sometimes, living in a world that is sinful and selfish leads us to endure tragedies, trials, and suffering that may not have a lesson in it. It’s simply a struggle in life.
A good friend of mine has been fighting bladder cancer for several months. She went for her checkup after completing chemo, and they discovered a second tumor on her brain. It’s not metastasized. It’s a whole different cancer. She’s facing a very complex operation to remove it. I cannot believe that the God who loves us and redeems us sent that to her just for some simple lesson to be learned. The God of the Old Testament is nothing like what we experience as people whom Christ has loved and redeemed. We are told plainly, God is love.
The human experience is often difficult and filled with good periods as well as periods of suffering. In the good times we offer God praise and thanks. In the tough periods of life, we are drawn closer to Christ who was well-acquainted with suffering. Instead of finding some educational justification for suffering and struggle, look to Jesus. His final word on all of human suffering is hope and life. It is redemption for all of us. Sometimes there is nothing that can make our struggles any better or easier. There wasn’t much that could make the cross easy for Jesus. But we know that no matter how hard life is we rest on God’s promises. The story of our struggling and suffering ends in hope.
What’s needed from us is the courage to follow Jesus. Judas betrayed him. The disciples fled when the guards came to arrest Jesus. All of Job’s friends and his wife turned on him and blamed him for his own suffering. But Mary not only had the courage to believe, but she also relied fully on what Jesus had said as truth. She knew that the burial perfumes would not be needed because Jesus had taught that death was never a final word. Tragedy would not reign in Jesus’s kingdom. She dumped out the burial ointments as an anointing of Jesus for the work and suffering he would do, and the hope he would bring.
[SLIDE 9] On Palm Sunday, the crowds lay their palms and cloaks before Jesus welcoming him as King of the Jews into the heart of Jerusalem. But just a short time later, they turned on him, calling for his unjust death and suffering. In our own hearts and lives, we make way for Jesus to be a part of our lives. But we too face the same question, will we have the courage to follow him, or will we turn and follow the crowd? Good Friday is coming. What will our choice be? [SLIDE 10]
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