Monday, April 4, 2011

Monday, April 4, 2011  Fourth Week of Lent

Jeremiah 16:10-21; Romans  7:1-12;  John 6:1-15

“When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”  John 6:15

One of the themes in John’s Passion account is that this Jesus being arrested, questioned, condemned, and crucified is a king.  And John emphasizes that Jesus is not a victim in all this:  he is a king regally active in all these events. We see this when the soldiers and the temple police come to the garden to arrest him.  Taking the initiative, Jesus steps forward and speaks to them first - asking, “Who is it you want?”  Then when Jesus responds, “I am he,” these armed men draw back and fall to the ground.  Later Jesus stands before Pilate refusing to tell him where he is from.  Pilate says, “Do you refuse to speak to me?  Surely you know that I have authority…to crucify you.”  In response to this threat, Jesus tells this Roman that he would have no authority at all over him unless it was granted him from above. 

While in Mark’s passion account Jesus cries out, we might even say, screams out in agony,  in John's account Jesus speaks from the cross telling Mary his mother and John his beloved disciple to take care of one another after his death.  And, in the moments just before his dying, Jesus, rather than crying out in pain, announces, “It is accomplished.”  And, in his two final acts Jesus bows his head and gives up his spirit.  In John’s account the head of this king does not simply fall because he is lifeless, rather he bows his head, and he hands over his spirit to God.  He dies regally.

Earlier in John 6 Jesus withdraws from the people coming to make him king.  They were not recognizing the kind of king he was.  They were trying to force him into being the kind of king they wanted.  Jesus knew this and so moved away from them and their plans for him.    

Haven’t all of us been in situations in which what others wanted for us was not what we wanted to claim for ourselves?  Did we have the courage to be ourselves?  Haven’t all of us been in situations in which we tried to make someone else be what we wanted them to be?   

Did we eventually have the wisdom to stop?

   

(Rev. Janice Schuyler)