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Cavalcade of FailureApril 01, 2007 Palm/Passion Sunday A grand cavalcade of failure! That’s the phrase that came to mind as I read and re-read that famous story this past week. And at the center of this failure is none other than Jesus Christ. As we heard at the front end of our service today, the last week of Jesus’ life started out well enough, with crowds cheering him on like a conquering hero as he entered the capitol city. We joined in that too, this morning, as we sang our opening hymn with palm fronds in hand. “All glory laud and honor, to thee redeemer king” the organ rang out, united with our voices. And, like that first century crowd, we sang like we believed it. At least, it seemed so to me. Alas, for Jesus things wound down pretty quickly after that, turning his parade of victory into a cavalcade of failure that wound up marching him right back outside of the city, up a small hill to the place of capital execution, called Golgotha, meaning, the place of the skull. There, at the top of a wooden scaffold that held his body, a sign was tacked that read, “This is the king of the Jews,” written in three different languages, according to John’s Gospel, evidently so no one could miss the irony. No, there was absolutely no question that Jesus was a colossal failure as a king. And seemingly as a messiah, for that matter. Well, pretty much a failure in every conceivable way, given that at the end, there was no one left to defend him, even – and most especially - those who had tramped around the countryside with him as though they bought what he had to say, dedicating their lives to his supposed royal and holy purposes. No, the few that remained at the end stood back at a distance, Luke reports, probably so as not to be too closely identified with the criminal the state was now executing. And as for those so-called friends of his, they marched right along in the cavalcade of failure, their loyalty and supposed love for the man melting away in fear and depressed recognition that things were not going to turn out the way they had expected. Judas is the famous failure. I’m thinking we probably over-focus on him, however. At one point, Simon Peter, the supposed rock upon whom Jesus’ church would be built, made this pledge: “Lord, I am ready to go with you, both to prison and to death.” [1] And you heard what became of that bold proclamation: it dissolved under a fast-acting corrosive called “save-your-own-skin,” otherwise known as cowardice, or we could say, abject failure. Pilate, the Roman Governor charged with meting out justice and keeping the peace, surely failed, by his own reckoning. He claimed Jesus was an innocent man, not deserving of the punishment that was being hurled to him from the crowds. Crucifixion was no remedy for justice or peace when considering the disposition of this clearly impotent failure of a messiah. Pilate’s tactic – intended to appease the crowds by giving them back the innocent Jesus or a known murderer – backfired; we could say it failed. Pilate gave in to the passion of the mob, but not before he tried to pass off the responsibility to the Jewish king, Herod, who in turn failed in his responsibility to protect one of his own from the detested minions of the Roman Empire. And what are we to say of the crowd? Many of whom surely were part of the welcoming party just a few days earlier, palm fronds in hand, lungs lustily bellowing out the psalm of praise, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” [2] They’re the ones we mimicked this morning with our own singing. How did their cheers turn to jeers and worse? How did their joyous welcoming party turn into the bloodthirsty mob? How was it that they joined so willingly the cavalcade of failure as it climaxed on the hill of the skull? This story reeks of fabulous failures. These failures pile on as we read into the tragedy amassing into an enormous weight engulfing Jesus by the time he gasps his final words with a last whoosh of breath. Whatever else might be said of it, this is a massive tragedy. Even without assigning it profound religious meaning, this is among the most powerful stories that have been passed forward from antiquity – some would say, The Most Powerful Story. And, of course, I count myself among them, because, of course, I do assign it profound religious and spiritual meaning. Birth, life, suffering and death, followed by and imbued with resurrection hope, tracks the human experience. Surely this sequence is the engine of meaning-making and moral development for us whether we take the name Christian or not. It doesn’t take a genius IQ to see that most of the world’s suffering is due to human failure. One of the principle converting points for me on my way into faith, was a recognition of the pervading truth embedded within the passion story reeking of failure. It rings true. We recognize the pattern. We have an intuitive grasp of how this happened. Even if we were to imagine ourselves a little bit smarter or wiser than the actors in the ancient drama, as we scan both the near and far horizon of contemporary human experience, we see the very same failures multiplied a thousand, million times over. And if we bravely look at environments close to home, say, as close as what goes on inside our own hearts and minds, we see the same residual tendencies, the same tension in our urge for both moral greatness and failure, sometimes with only a seeming hair’s width distance between these two tendencies. That’s the human story. That’s the story Jesus willingly entered, as Paul said so poetically - how Jesus, “though in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant…and being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” [3] But now here’s the miraculous thing. Here’s what we say in this sanctuary during this most holy season. It’s a mind-bender, to be sure. But still, the mystery we proclaim says that Jesus became failure so that he could absorb failure. All of it. He took it all on by virtue of his willing humility. And when he died, the failure died too. All of it. All of it then, and all of it now. All of it out there, and all of it in here, and here. Everywhere, for everyone, for all time. Sounds odd, I know. Even, beyond belief. But as you let this wisdom settle down inside yourselves, you sense the awesome potential of it, if only it were true. You sense the profound relief for yourselves, if you could only believe such a thing. That’s because all of us have intimate knowledge of the failure syndrome. We don’t like to admit that. Mostly we try to gut our way through it, or deny it, or act out on it, but then, that’s why it’s so important to re-tell, re-live, Jesus’ story week after week. In this way, as his story becomes our story, we have less need and desire to deceive ourselves into thinking all’s well when really, all’s not well. And we learn that what we can not do for ourselves, God did on our behalf - he overcame our failure already and all we need do is let out a last gasping sigh of relief and live into the truth of it. The weight of failure lifted from us, releasing us into a new freedom. That’s why we’re bold to join the throng of welcome as Jesus rides into Jerusalem this morning, even knowing the ugly events that will follow. It’s a bit of foreshadowing of what we’ll be celebrating next Sunday. Still, it’s a confusing affair. Confusing, and maybe even seeming a bit foolish. As Paul will eventually write once he comes ‘round to the truth of it for himself, once he finds the awful weight of failure lifted from his life: “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’” [4] One of the reasons we know Jesus swallowed up all the failure in his story is what happened to the failed disciples afterwards. They found resurrection. From out of their failure, a great, great hope sprang forth. Here’s the ultimate irony: turns out that the man on the cross is a true king after all. He reigns in the kingdom of humility where up is down and down is up, where first is last and last is first, and where weakness and failure become transmuted into the very power of God. Jesus is God’s cure for what ails us. ___________________________ Previous sermon: The Care and Feeding of Wolves • Next sermon: Be Prepared to Be Astonished All past sermons |
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