CELEBRATING:
SERMONS
5 - April 2009
A sermon delivered by Rev. Gordon How
April 5, 2009 - Palm Sunday - The Downward Spiral -
A Communion Meditation
Fifty years ago Sao Kya Seng, at the time the prince
of thirty-four independent states in northeastern Burma,
came to Denver, Colorado, to study agriculture. Seng
wanted to experience what it was like to be a student
in the United States, so he kept his identity a secret.
No one, not even his professors, knew that he was a
prince! One of his fellow students was Inge Eberhard,
from Austria was also an exchange student. The two became
friends, discovered they had a lot in common, and spent
more and more time together. Their friendship grew into
love, but Seng didn't want their relationship to be
coloured by the fact that he was royalty. He wanted
her to marry him for the right reasons. Eventually Seng
proposed to Inge, she accepted, and they got married,
in Colorado.
The couple took their honeymoon, first in Austria,
where they met her family. Then they traveled to Burma
to meet his family. When their ship reached the port
of Rangoon, hundreds of people had gathered on the dock.
Many of them had come out to meet the ship in small
boats decorated in bright colours. A band was playing
on the dock, while people held up welcoming signs and
tossed flowers at the couple as the ship passed by.
Surprised at this unusual welcome and excitement, Inge
turned to her husband and enquired as to the cause of
this celebration. "Inge," he said, "I
am their prince. These people are celebrating our arrival.
You are now the princess."
A strange but true story. Like the story of the Burmese
prince's hidden identity, we do not get a glimpse of
Jesus' royalty until his entrance into the holy city.
And then people wave palm branches, toss their coats
in his path, and shout cries of welcome and acclamation!
We already know his true identity, because the Gospel
writers knew who he was when they wrote the Gospels,
but most people of that day did not know.
There is another parallel to the story of the Burmese
prince. In a book Inge wrote about her experience as
a princess (Inge Sargent, Twilight over Burma: My Life
As a Shan Princess), she tells of her happy but short
marriage, because in 1962 her husband disappeared during
a military coup and she and her daughters never saw
him again.
Jesus' spot in the royal spotlight was also short-lived.
The palm branches stopped waving, and any hints of either
royalty or loyalty vanished as conflict loomed ahead.
Jesus first went to the temple, an obligation for a
pilgrim. There he had words with those who had lost
sight of what the temple was all about. It wasn't long
before the intellectuals of the temple confronted him.
Then he told some stories in which the chief priests
and Pharisees felt implicated. Then the Pharisees tried
to trap Jesus on a tricky tax question. Jesus silenced
them with a crafty question of his own! More questions
followed, but the people asking the questions weren't
all that interested in any answers. They had an agenda.
The conflict escalated, the chief priests and elders
now plotting his arrest and death. From there things
took on a life of their own, but along the way Jesus
was feeling the pressure of the conflict intensely,
and it spilled over when he took some time out to pray
in the Garden of Gethsemane. There he poured out his
heart to God. The spiraling downward was complete. "Father,
if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not
what I want but what you want." "Not my will,
but thine, be done." This is Jesus at his most
vulnerable. He was facing unbelievable suffering, and
if God could have found another way Jesus would have
welcomed it. His Gethsemane experience was a battle
of the soul, but he resolved to obey God's will, whatever
the cost.
There is an unusual arc, or trajectory to Jesus' life,
especially as it is reflected in the events of Holy
Week. The trajectory is downward. This is in contrast
to what we consider success stories. Most of us do not
aspire to job titles containing the words, "assistant"
or "junior". On the other hand, few of us,
upon taking off our graduation gowns, head straight
for the boardroom, to the head of the department, or
even an office with a window! It's conventional wisdom
that to get much-coveted positions of leadership you
often have to climb, crawl, clamour, and claw your way
there. Successful career paths seem to always follow
an upward arc, and only as you got older and are no
longer at the top of your game would the arc begin to
dip downwards.
In contrast, the arc of Jesus' life spirals downwards.
Whereas the week begins with shouts of acclamation,
it ends with shouts of "Crucify him!" Whereas
the week begins with people throwing their cloaks on
the road in front of him, in his honour, it ends with
soldiers taking his clothes away! At the beginning of
the week Jesus is hailed as the One, the Son of David!
The One who comes in the name of the Lord! By the end
of the week even the wretched Barabbas, a notorious
thief, is more popular than Jesus.
The New Testament traces the downward arc of Jesus'
experience, saying that "Christ Jesus ...was in
the form of God, ...but emptied himself, taking the
form of a slave, (and) being born in human likeness.
And ...in human form, he humbled himself and became
obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross."
You cannot get much lower. Death on a cross was a degrading
punishment reserved for slaves and criminals!
Someone has referred to this arc, or trajectory, as
the "arc of salvation," and in the New Testament
book of Philippians there is a song that celebrates
the arc's sweep. It's an ode to the arc of salvation,
if you will, and mirrors Jesus' experience during Holy
Week, for his was a journey from acclamation to humiliation,
a path that took him from glory to abject humility and
even death. And along the way, to remind him that he
was on the way down, he was mocked, repeatedly.
It's called the arc of salvation, not because salvation
is found in humiliation but because God honoured Jesus'
humble obedience. To follow Jesus is to be delivered
from any private hellish depth into which we have sunk.
The lowest point of the "arc of salvation"
may be low indeed, but it curves eternally upward. The
arc of salvation goes downward, so that Christ can bring
us upward. He "became poor, so that by his poverty
(we) might become rich." He died so that we might
live.
Philippians spells out what it means to have the mind
of Christ, saying, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition
or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above
yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each
of you to the interests of the others." Paul says
much the same thing in Romans: "Live in harmony
with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to
associate with people of low position. Do not think
you are superior."
The arc of salvation encourages harmonious community.
You may have heard this story before - it is told of
a monastic community whose communal spirit grew brittle
and argumentative with time. They sought the advice
of a visiting monk, who took it upon himself to take
each monk aside and tell him a secret. He told each
one, "One of the members of this community is the
Messiah". It was a mischievous way to foster harmony,
for it kept the monks guessing, but it also put an expectant
and redemptive spirit in their hearts. Their communal
spirit was transformed as they began to relate to each
other differently, conscious that the person beside
them might be the Messiah.
May this same expectant and redemptive spirit - the
spirit of Jesus - transform our hearts and minds today
as we share again the Last Supper meal at the Table
of Christ - reminding us of the downward spiral - when
Jesus was completely humbled upon the Cross.
Holy Week Prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ, in this sacred and solemn week when
we see again the depth and mystery of your redeeming
love, help us
" to follow where you go,
" to stop where you stumble,
" to listen when you cry,
" to hurt as you suffer,
" to bow our heads in sorrow as you die,
so that, when you are raised to life again,
we may share in your endless joy. Amen.
Sermon Resources … Luke 19:29-48; D. Friesen,
Inge Sargant;
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