Holy Wednesday 2024

 Isaiah 50:4-9a

50:4 The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens-- wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.

50:5 The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward.

50:6 I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.

50:7 The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame;

50:8 he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me.

50:9a It is the Lord GOD who helps me; who will declare me guilty?

Psalm 70

70:1 Be pleased, O God, to deliver me. O LORD, make haste to help me!

70:2 Let those be put to shame and confusion who seek my life. Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire to hurt me.

70:3 Let those who say, "Aha, Aha!" turn back because of their shame.

70:4 Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation say evermore, "God is great!"

70:5 But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay!

Hebrews 12:1-3

12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,

12:2 looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

12:3 Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.

John 13:21-32

13:21 After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, "Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me."

13:22 The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking.

13:23 One of his disciples--the one whom Jesus loved--was reclining next to him;

13:24 Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking.

13:25 So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, "Lord, who is it?"

13:26 Jesus answered, "It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish." So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot.

13:27 After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, "Do quickly what you are going to do."

13:28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him.

13:29 Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, "Buy what we need for the festival"; or, that he should give something to the poor.

13:30 So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.

13:31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.

13:32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.

We keep running up on these personal pronouns. Isaiah uses it; so does the Psalmist. It’s easy to misread Isaiah, to think the “I” there is a person; but hear it as the nation of Israel, the children of Abraham, the party to the covenant. That actually makes more sense. Israel is the light of the world, not the prophet. And the Psalms?  We read those so often as personal prayers; and that's not a false reading.  But consider them as corporate prayers, the prayers of worshippers in a liturgy, and that "I" becomes the collective "we," the people speaking as one, but not as individuals. 

So the Psalm is about God's deliverance; a deliverance the Psalmist is praying for, but expecting nonetheless; is even resting on, secure in trust in God.  And that deliverance is for the people, for everyone; not just for me, myself, an "I". And the passage from the Hebrews is about community, the "cloud of witnesses" which surrounds us and supports us and proves to us that we are not alone, no one is ever alone.  Isaiah is full of the passionate trust that leads to vindication, because if the Lord is with you, who can stand against you?  And if God is not with you, you are wholly alone.  But again, the "you" there is collective, not individual. And the story from John is about betrayal by Jesus' closest friends; he stands alone, soon to be abandoned by all; but it in that betrayal is the glorification of the Son of Man and of God.

But how is the kingdom of heaven like that?

Wittgenstein said death is the only experience of life which is not lived through.  Tolstoy in the 19th century, and the morality play "Everyman" in the 15th century, dramatized that death is experienced by each of us, alone; no one can do it for us, or with us.  Death may bring our community together to mourn, but they mourn for themselves.  We die, each of us, alone.  But we live in community.  We live as a part of the whole. When we die, the community continues; but we die alone.  Which is better? 

Even the story of Judas here (probably an invented name, one linked to "Judah" and so to "Jews".  Crossan, among others but I remember Crossan most strongly, wrote a short book on the slander of the invented name "Judas."  It isn't a name recorded anywhere in ancient literature except in the gospels, which indicates it was invented to make clear the onus for betrayal was on the people of Judea, not the Romans.  Which in a first-century context makes sense:  the people of Judea had no political/military (they were entirely synonymous) power; the Romans did.  The Romans could crucify you, after all; the Judeans couldn't.) is a story of the community v. the individual. If the gospels spoke plainly about who was responsible for crucifying Jesus, they’d have to squarely blame Rome. That would be too provocative, and, as Jackson Browne said, they’d get the same as the rebel Jesus. Those with the power to kill you don’t like rebels. Judas acts selfishly (indeed, in John's version Judas acts because Satan enters him; which makes Judas a puppet on strings, nothing more), yet it serves the glorification of Jesus and God.

Me, myself, an "I".  Who am I, if not a member of a community?  How odd that community which offers life, must find its origin, its spark, its flashpoint, in death.  We are the people who worship the crucified God.