Don't Skip to the End!

Are you one of those people who reads the last couple of pages before starting a book? Or do you fast forward to the last couple of minutes of a movie before watching the whole thing? Do you need to know how something ends in order to decide to commit?

If so, I’ve never understood that impulse. The fun of reading a novel or watching a film is sustaining the mystery of how things will end. The narrative or plot is what matters, the flow of events from one to the next.

In the same way, I don’t understand people who attend only Christmas and Easter services. Essentially, these folks are cutting out the entire life, ministry, teaching, miracles, and crucifixion of Christ in order to focus merely on his birth and resurrection.

I feel the same way about those of you who only attend the Sunday services of Holy Week. If you skip directly from Palm Sunday to Easter, you’re missing some important pieces of the narrative. To go from the celebratory mood of Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem directly to the glory and majesty of Jesus’ resurrection is to skip directly to the ending!

The faith which we share and call “Christian” is really nothing but a story, a narrative of how God has worked in the world to bring salvation to all people. It’s tempting to focus entirely on the end; yes, it’s great news that we are saved by grace, forgiven of our sins, and raised to new life.

But the whole story matters. We need to know how God accomplished this salvation, because it tells us something important about God and God’s nature. Put simply, the fact that God in Jesus embraced the suffering of the cross should assure us that none of us are truly alone in our suffering. Jesus Christ embraced the entirety of what it means to be human in order to unite us to him. We are never separated from God, because God consented to be with us in our humanity.

Nowhere does this become so clear as in the story of Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday. We will celebrate Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem this Sunday by waving palm branches and singing songs of praise. 

In our Maundy Thursday service, we will remember and reenact the Last Supper, in which Jesus left his disciples the example of his servanthood in washing their feet, and instituted a ritual meal in which his ongoing presence is celebrated.

And of course, on Good Friday, we will hear the story of Jesus’ arrest, trial, torture, and crucifixion. None of it is pretty, but the details are important. We need to peer closely, to pay attention to what happened.

All of this sets the stage for what happens on Easter morning. The Easter story simply doesn’t have the same weight unless you are clear on what came before. Easter doesn’t matter unless Maundy Thursday and Good Friday happened. 

For that reason, I hope you make plans to attend our extra Holy Week services. Even if you already know how it ends.

A Mini-Resurrection

By the time you read this, a refugee family of seven from Afghanistan will be safely settled in their new home in Dallas, Texas.

Over the last week, a Catalyst Group from KPUMC has been hard at work getting a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in north Dallas ready for their arrival. Oscar Brown and Mary Ann Climer went shopping for furniture at some resale shops and found a beautiful dining room set, couches, and other assorted pieces. Mary Ann found housewares at Goodwill, and bought fresh groceries to fill the refrigerator and pantry. Bev Sladek and I made up the beds, put contact paper in the kitchen shelves, and put books and toys out for the children. Sally Climer had a meal prepared for their arrival last night (Wednesday).

I think of the preparation work as especially appropriate for Holy Week. During these days in which we observe the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, our church has been working on behalf of a family which has suffered much in the preceding years. We know very little about this family, except that they are from Afghanistan, have five children — four boys from the age of 13 to 6, and a two—year old daughter. We also know that the father had worked alongside US Special Ops forces, and for that reason, his identity must be kept secret as much as possible. We don’t know yet what they have experienced over the past seventeen years — since the US began military operations in Afghanistan — but we can safely assume that things became untenable for them to stay.

And even though we can also safely assume that they are Muslims, I would like to suggest that their arrival in the US is a kind of Easter moment for them. They are about to experience a sort of mini-resurrection, a chance for them to start again. Here in Dallas they will be able to enroll all their children in school, find meaningful employment, and begin to dream of the future.

That’s what Easter is about, isn’t it? In the resurrection of Jesus, we have the perfect symbol and guarantee of the possibility of new life. What our refugee family from Afghanistan is experiencing right now, is something that you and I can experience as well right now.

New life, setting aside the past, repentance, leaving behind old ways of being and thinking — all of this is possible because Jesus has broken the power of death and sin. We don’t have to remain mired in the muck of the world’s dysfunction. We are renewed and empowered by the Holy Spirit to be “resettled” into a new place, a safe space that we recognize as home.

Come home to Jesus this Easter. Come home to yourself.

Jesus Sang the Blues

If you follow me on social media, you know that I am a big U2 fan, and have been for years. Bono, the lead singer of Irish rock group U2, once wrote an introduction to a special edition of the Book of Psalms in which he suggested that David was the original bluesman:

“At age 12, I was a fan of David. He felt familiar, like a pop star could feel familiar. The words of the psalms were as poetic as they were religious, and he was a star — a dramatic character, because before David could fulfill the prophecy and become the king of Israel, he had to take quite a beating. He was forced into exile and ended up in a cave in some no-name border town facing the collapse of his ego and abandonment by God. But this is where the soap opera got interesting. This is where David was said to have composed his first psalm — a blues. That’s what a lot of the psalms feel like to me — the blues. Man shouting at God — ‘My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?’ (Psalm 22).”

As an art form, blues music fascinates me. I don’t listen to it all the time, but it is a very particular style that is suited to certain times and moods. I happen to think that it is especially appropriate during Lent.

That’s why seven years ago, when I was pastor of the contemporary service at FUMC Rowlett, I introduced a service called “Jesus Sang the Blues” which I debuted on Palm Sunday. Two years in a row, we celebrated this special service, in which our contemporary band played the blues, and we focused on the story of Jesus’ suffering.

I’m excited about unveiling the service here at Kessler Park UMC this Sunday. The 11:00 am service will be outdoors on the east lawn. We’ve set up a stage against the building, where the Pat Boyack Band will be playing a number of blues tunes in our service, including “Peace in the Valley” and “People Get Ready,” as well as the classic hymns, “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” and “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” (Pat Boyack is the husband of our office administrator, Yvonne.)

Why the blues on Palm Sunday? For one, Palm Sunday is also known as Passion Sunday, and it is liturgically appropriate to not only observe Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but also Jesus’ suffering leading up to the crucifixion (known as the “passion”).

If you are one of those churchgoers who only attends Sunday worship, and not the special services throughout Holy Week, you could possibly go from Palm Sunday to Easter and never hear much about the pain that Jesus experienced on his final days. That would be unfortunate, because the death of Jesus is just as important as the resurrection of Jesus. To put it another way, you can’t really understand the joy of Easter unless you have also experienced the despair and hopelessness of Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

The point of observing “Jesus Sang the Blues” on Passion Sunday is to remind ourselves of Jesus’ vulnerability during the darkest days of his life. Jesus went through the complete range of difficult emotions on that last week — betrayal, abandonment, bitterness, torture, depression, and a bleak death on a cross. While hanging on that cross, he shouted a line from Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

That cry has been heard time and time again throughout history, from the victims of wars, the survivors of natural catastrophes, the oppressed and the poor. That cry has come to full expression in the writings of the prophets, the words of the poets, and the music of those who play and sing the blues.

When we see that Jesus sang the blues, then we come to the startling realization that Jesus has completely identified himself with the human situation. Jesus was truly one of us; and not just “one of us,” but one of the least. He was condemned, humiliated, cast aside, and marginalized.

Jesus suffered, too.

Jesus cried and shouted and protested his innocence, too.

Jesus railed against God, too.

All of that is true of Jesus, just as it is often true of me and you. Holy Week is not just about the suffering of Jesus, which was hardly unique; it’s about human suffering, and the ways in which we torment ourselves and each other.

Sometimes there’s nothing left to do but sing the blues …

(If you're not into the blues or not interested in worshipping outdoors, there will also be a traditional Palm Sunday service with Holy Communion in the church sanctuary at 8:30 am.)