SEATTLE MENNONITE CHURCH

Passion Sunday, Sixth Sunday in Lent, April 13, 2003

Sermon:  Weldon D. Nisly

 

TITLE:  “Enough! The hour has come.”

THEME:  We bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord

TEXTS:  Mark 11: 1-11  Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem

               Isaiah 50: 4-9a  The servant’s humiliation and vindication

               Philippians 2:5-11  Jesus emptied himself

               Mark 14: 1 – 15: 47  Jesus’ passion…suffering for our sake

 

Prayer

 

Dear God, in this Holy Week and in this warring world, open our hearts to the Passion of Jesus so that we may see with our hearts and walk with Jesus in faith and hope and love. We pray in the name of Jesus who is already praying within us.  Amen.

 

Entering Holy Week & Jesus’ Passion

 

I thank God that today we enter this most Holy Week of the year in the Church.   I thank God, as well, that this 6th and culminating Sunday in Lent is a “normal” Sunday.  This Sunday is “normal” because we will not dwell directly on the tragedy of war and we do not have the media present to share our worship with the community.  Although anyone is welcome and encouraged to join us, it is good to have this more “normal” Sunday.

 

Nevertheless, this Sunday is not really “normal” at all. Indeed it is the most difficult Sunday of the Church year.  It is the Sunday of Jesus’ Passion.  We began worship with Jesus’ grand entry into Jerusalem – the “Triumphal Entry” as we know it.  But it is not enough to stop with a triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  If we stop there and pick the Gospel story up on Easter Sunday -- going from the glory of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem to the glory of Jesus’ resurrection -- we have missed the heart of the Gospel.  Indeed, we cannot hear and know the Gospel or the glory if we don’t hear and know the suffering of Jesus’ Passion this Holy Week.

 

The word passion comes from the Latin root word meaning to suffer.  That Jesus’ passion begins with a parade of entry into Jerusalem demands that we recognize two things that are taking place.  It is Jerusalem, the seat of power that Jesus enters.  And Jesus enters riding a small colt of humility not a great stallion of a warrior. 

 

“Today Jesus intrudes into Jerusalem…God is invading the city…Jesus is on the move.  He will ride, encroach, with a whip cleanse our corrupted temple, enrage people in power, both political and religious, unmask our deceit, evoke the violence upon which culture is created, take the full force upon his back, hang there, bleed, and gasp his last.  All for us, and for our salvation” (Willimon, PR, p. 11).

 

This is a new kind of ruler and reign. And it is threatening the powers that be.  The signs are already there for the passion and suffering to come.  When the powers are threatened somebody is scapegoated, somebody suffers.  This is the turning-point of history.

 

Everything we have heard from the Gospel each Sunday in Lent has pointed in this direction.  Every step Jesus has taken us on this Lenten journey is bringing us to this

Holy Week and to this place.  We cannot escape.  Perhaps we are more keenly aware

of that truth this year than ever before.

 

Mark’s gospel is the most concise telling of this story of Jesus.  Mark is sometimes called a Passion gospel with an extended prologue introducing Jesus’ life.  From the time Jesus enters Jerusalem until his arrest, betrayal, and crucifixion (chapters 11, 12, & 13) Jesus engages in one conflict story after another. 

 

“Jesus outsmarts and enrages all his antagonists.  He accuses them of killing all God’s prophets (12:1-12). Concerning taxes, he implies they are lackeys of the emperor and not loyal Jews (12: 13-17).  He asserts that they don’t know the scriptures (12: 34), and he condemns the scribes for exploiting the poor (12: 38-40).  By shaming their leaders in front of the common people, Jesus seals his doom” (Reta Halteman Finger, MWR, 3/31/03, p. 5).

 

On Good Friday we come to hear what happens in this turning point of history.  All of us are welcomed and encouraged to come so we can together live that story in our Good Friday service.  I encourage you to read and pray Mark 14 and 15 at least once this week.

 

To ensure that we don’t easily skip from Jesus’ triumphal entry to the glorious resurrection of Easter morn, we hear much of Jesus’ Passion this Sunday.  It is the way we need to enter this Holy Week with Jesus.

 

Following our hearing the gospel of Jesus’ Passion, we will sit in silence for a few minutes so we can hold Jesus’ suffering and be held by Jesus to begin this Holy Week.

 

We heard the first half of Jesus’ Passion.  We left off where the disciples all left Jesus and fled.  Hear now the Passion of Jesus Christ.

 

Read Mark 14:  53 – 15: 5…..15: 22 – 41…..15: 46b-47

 

“Enough! The hour has come.”

 

---------- SILENCE ------------