Meditation
Mark 14:10-15:39
Palm/Passion Sunday
9 April 2006
Stacey Simpson Duke
This week the National Geographic Society made my job this morning
somewhat more difficult than usual. Today marks the beginning of
Holy Week, a week for reflecting on Jesus’ suffering and death, a week
for reflecting on our own culpability. And so this morning we
tell the story of Jesus’ Passion, a story in which Judas Iscariot plays
a rather large role. But now, according to the sensational
stories coming out of the National Geographic, a newly discovered
“Gospel of Judas” is supposed to turn our whole understanding of that
story, and of Christianity itself, on its head.
The first modern translation of this “Gospel” was released to much
fanfare this past Thursday. The manuscript is one of dozens of
Gnostic texts, which were rejected by the early Christians because of
the Gnostic claim that salvation comes through special secret
knowledge. According to this newly translated ancient manuscript,
Judas, the most despised villain in Christian history, was actually the
most favored disciple, the only one who truly understood Jesus.
He had the special knowledge that the rest of the disciples didn’t
have. And according to his gospel, he was only following Jesus’
orders in handing him over for crucifixion.
I am not sure how this is supposed to turn Christianity on its head,
but I do believe it will be good for book sales. There is
something so tantalizing about the idea that maybe, for 2000 years, the
Bible and the church have had things all wrong. If Judas is
innocent, or even better, was only following the divine plan, maybe the
bad stuff we feel guilty about in our own lives hasn’t been so bad
after all. If Judas has been exonerated, perhaps we can be too.
The truth is, if we think the story of Jesus’ Passion is just a story
about Judas’ awful betrayal and Peter’s fearful denials and the crowd’s
bloodthirsty calls for crucifixion, then we are sadly mistaken.
The story we are about to hear is about all of that, for sure.
But it is about us, too. We are the ones who betray, mock,
desert, deny, deceive, and crucify. We are the ones who put Love
to death. We are the ones who fail in too many ways to
name. We are not who we had meant to be, and no revising of our
history will change this. The cock crows for us, too. This
is our story.
But it is someone else’s story too. It is the story of the One
who gave himself for all this brokenness, to mend our shattered hearts
and fractured lives, to save us from ourselves. It is not some
special secret knowledge that will somehow release us from our dark
realities. He himself is our release. His love is our
deliverance.
But first we have to see him, to see who he is and what he did.
“Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” the high priest will ask
him. And Jesus will answer with the simple, powerful words that
God himself spoke in Genesis, “I AM.” Can we believe it?
Those who mocked him on the cross will say, “He saved others; he cannot
save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now
from the cross, that we may see and believe.” But the truth is
this: it is the fact that he does not come down that saves us. It
is is his death that shows us who he is. Can we bear to see him
there? Can we dare to believe?
So now we hear the story, of who we have been and what we have
done. And of who he is and what he does. It is Holy Week
now. Time for looking honestly at ourselves. And time to
look at him again. See him. See him there, on the
cross. This is what the ugliness in us does – it kills. But
more, this is what the love of God does – it gives itself. For
you, for me.
