Jesus has performed his last healing, at least as Mark tells the story of his life and death. He healed blind Bartimaeus outside Jericho, and now he is approaching Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, named for peace but so often the site of religious violence and bloodshed. Jerusalem, where Jesus is to face violence and bloodshed – his own blood poured out to fulfill God’s mission to restore creation to wholeness. He has told his disciples yet again what he faces in Jerusalem, and once again they have squabbled, unable to take in the magnitude of his words. From this point on Jesus does no more healing or soothing. He faces down his accusers, cleanses the temple of corrupt influences and tells pointed stories. And moves inexorably toward his passion and death.
In our church year we too are approaching Jerusalem, closing in on Holy Week. For those who draw near, “close enough to smell the blood,” as one preacher I knew used to say, it is a time of discomfort and disjunction as we hover near the mystery of such a life, such a death, and such life emerging from such death. Death and Life are inextricably linked in this passion and resurrection story of ours.
Who are we kidding? Death and life are inextricably linked in our own lives and our world as well: the natural world around us with its seasons and evolutions and swift brutality; the social worlds around us with all their violence and conflict... and sometimes peace emerging through it all. Even in our own bodies, life and death compete, as the rate of cells dying gradually overtakes the generative impulse toward life, until the system runs down for good. Life and death are always joined, but it is human nature to focus on life, glancing at death only when we are forced to do so.
Thus Palm Sunday is a weird occasion for those who take their Christian commitment seriously. We voluntarily focus our attention on the mistreatment and murder of a man of pure wholeness, complete integrity. If we allow the horror to penetrate us it can leave us unsettled, even frightened. I once spoke to a child who had attended our Stations of the Cross; as she put it, "It freaked me out." She was able to handle it in the safety of a loving family and church community, but it’s a lot to take in, no matter what age. If we’re paying attention, it freaks us all out.
So we tiptoe up to it. It’s still a week away; but the Palm Sunday story we focus on this week brings us to the threshold of that walk to the Cross. Let’s take this week to prepare ourselves, which really just means opening our spirits to the drama and the trauma, the horror and the overwhelming love. Let’s ask God where in our lives we are called to live this story, and to make it known.
In our lives as Christ followers we are always approaching Jerusalem, that place where our ministry comes into sharpest focus, where God desires to make the world whole through us. We believe Christ accomplished that once and for all on the cross, yet somehow that redemption needs to be made real through us, one person at a time.
For Jesus, it was the cross. What ministry is it for us, on this side of Calvary and Easter? What work of redemption does God want to complete through you?
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