Beginning in Darkness

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

March 20, 2005; Palm/Passion Sunday; Year A

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 27:11-54) – Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus said, "You say so." But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer. Then Pilate said to him, "Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?" But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.

Now at the festival the governor was accustomed to release a prisoner for the crowd, anyone whom they wanted. At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Jesus Barabbas. So after they had gathered, Pilate said to them, "Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?" For he realized that it was out of jealousy that they had handed him over. While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, "Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a dream about him." Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus killed. The governor again said to them, "Which of the two do you want me to release for you?" And they said, "Barabbas." Pilate said to them, "Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?" All of them said, "Let him be crucified!" Then he asked, "Why, what evil has he done?" But they shouted all the more, "Let him be crucified!"

So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves." Then the people as a whole answered, "His blood be on us and on our children!" So he released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on his head. They put a reed in his right hand and knelt before him and mocked him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" They spat on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. Aftermocking him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

As they went out, they came upon a man from Cyrene named Simon; they compelled this man to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull), they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall; but when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him, they divided his clothes among themselves by casting lots; then they sat down there and kept watch over him. Over his head they put the charge against him, which read, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews."

Then two bandits were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, "You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross." In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking him, saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he wants to; for he said, 'I am God's Son.'" The bandits who were crucified with him also taunted him in the same way.

From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o'clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, "This man is calling for Elijah." At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him." Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, "Truly this man was God's Son!"

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The late bishop of Winchester, John V. Taylor tells a story of two friends who were planning to spend a week away in the beautiful English countryside:

They found there were three trains in the day: one in the early morning; one mid-morning, arriving in the afternoon; and the last train that got in about 10 o'clock at night. One of them was all for catching the early train when there would be fewer people and they could arrive in time for lunch. But the other friend, who was a writer, said, "No, let's arrive in the dark when we can't see beyond the black hedges. Let's grope our way up the lane and find the cottage gate by the scent of the honeysuckle. After a sleepy welcome and a hot drink, we'll climb to our room by candlelight and fall into bed and hear nothing but the silence around us. Then when we've slept and the first light wakes us, we can lean out under the eaves and watch the new world being made and learn the shape of the hills and greet the early birds and hold our breath for the arrival of the sun. But first we must start in the darkness."1

It seems that everything that has real value starts that way -- in the darkness. We hear the story of creation -- "in the beginning... the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the fact of the deep... And God said, Let there be light."

Our own beginnings started in the safe darkness of our mother's womb. Our eruption into light was a wrenching separation from the only life we knew. Our first breath of air and opening cry of agony was a great affirmation of the mystery of new life breaking forth into a new dimension.

Every passage in life seems to ride on the waves that vibrate from an original event. Over and over we learn that dying actually leads to new life. We left home for the first day of school, maybe with tears over the abrupt departure from our comfortable nest, and we found a world of new friends and new wonders. At every passage it seems that something dies and something new is born. The end of school, a twenty-first birthday, a loving commitment of fidelity, a change of jobs. Whenever these things happens there is a pain of loss and a hope for something new. We have repeating crises of separation. We face a move; a serious illness; time for retirement; the loss of an old friend. In all of this, we are learning. Part of what we are learning is how to die. All of these little daily deaths when embraced -- leading to new possibilities and the greater maturity beyond them, teaching us the habit of dying into new life. They plant in us a kind of confidence that something will always open up behind the darkness. That there is evening and there is morning. Bishop Taylor says "it isn't death that matters, but the hope you bring to it."

Then when we've slept and the first light wakes us, we can lean out under the eaves and watch the new world being made and learn the shape of the hills and greet the early birds and hold our breath for the arrival of the sun. But first we must start in the darkness.

The greatest story that we treasure in our Christian tradition, the story of Easter's resurrection, begins today on this Passion Sunday. We may hold our breath for the arrival of the Son, but first we must start in darkness. And it is a difficult and painful darkness. The agony and tragedy can seem overwhelming. How hard it is to watch a beloved one die. How hopeless it is to stand helpless in the face of injustice and wrong. And for one who was so alive as Jesus was, whose very being exuded such abundant life, who seemed to bring love and wholeness to every moment and each encounter, how hard it must be for him to lay all of that aside for such an evil cup of bitterness. There must have been moments when he despaired that the dark would have the last word. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Jesus knows about darkness. Jesus knows all about the darkness. The darkness is where Jesus is to be found. And in the dark, he offers no answers. There are no answers. Before the darkness he is silent. Within the darkness he can give voice only to his experience of abandonment. "Eli, eli, lema sabachthani?"

"He brings no easy explanations, but his presence takes away the meaningless of the suffering."2

We who enter the darkness of this Holy Week will experience his presence in the darkness, and his presence can take away the meaninglessness of the suffering of the whole world.

The poet Thomas Blackburn has a poem that describes how he and his wife found a broken crucifix in the Alps. It was a worm-eaten figure of the familiar man hanging in the agony between life and death. They took it home to hang in their sight:

    Because it says nothing reasonable

   It explains nothing away,

    And just by gazing into darkness

    Is able to mean more

    than words can say.3

In the evening of that day of passion, his broken body was lowered from the cross and laid in the darkness of the tomb. We can hold our breath for the arrival of the Son. But first we must start in the darkness.

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1.  John V. Taylor, The Easter God, p. 73

2.  Taylor, p. 75

3.  quoted in Taylor, p. 76

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